


Stalker

by xantissa



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Bucky is a badass, Bucky is fucked up but Steve doesn't mind, Captain America: The Winter Soldier Spoilers, Captivity, Dubious Consent, F/M, M/M, METAL ARM, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Obsession, Romance, Steve is fucked up too, Steve is kinky, Steve is quite dangerous too, The Arm Knows Best, The Arm is slutty, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-08
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-13 02:51:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7135490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xantissa/pseuds/xantissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story of Steve falling headlong into obsession of his own making, of falling in love against all odds.<br/>This is a story of the Soldier being broken and still highly functional. It's a story about a person that will not trust love or friendship but, will trust what he can quantify and understand.<br/>This is a story about seeing things for what they are, about Winter Soldier saving Steve.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mssdare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssdare/gifts).
  * Translation into Русский available: [Сталкер](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11858517) by [Black_Mamba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Mamba/pseuds/Black_Mamba)



> For a new friend. Hope you like it J. And  
> We really need to meet!  
> Also: My Beta is [NurseDarry](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NurseDarry) and she is the only reason Steve doesn't have three arms in the sex scenes. I tried to argue he really needed three arms, but she is a stickler for anatomically accurate characterizations. Anyway, without her there wouldn't be a fic, so send her hugs too!

He could smell the plums from two blocks away. It made his mouth water and his stomach grumble, the desire to eat the fruit sudden and almost painful. He couldn’t remember why the smell made him react this why, but he could almost taste the fruit on his tongue, the thin, leathery skin giving way to his teeth and the soft, sweet flesh inside bursting with intensely flavored juice. The ripe, sweet scent had him trailing the busy streets of Bucharest until he saw the small stall with fresh fruit.

On the way back he felt somebody looking at him. It’s been so long, so very long since anybody really _looked_ at him, as a person not as a possession. It made him abnormally sensitive to being the focus of somebody's attention.

Like now.

Finding the paper with its screaming headline was enough to know why.

He circled his block of flats until he found all five strike teams getting ready to storm, the black vans both too well maintained for this part of town and too heavy, the vehicles sitting low on their wheels. The little shifts of the vehicle on its shocks indicating multiple moving weights inside, not a single large cargo.

He kept his distance and circled the block, making sure to avoid the CCTV, until he was sure he’d pegged all of the cars.

Then he entered the building across the street and to the left of his own, where he made sure to jimmy open the lock of an old laundry room. Running the fifteen floors up wasn’t much of an exertion and gave him the advantage of being capable of hearing if somebody was coming up or down towards him.

Once inside the old long-unused room, he pulled away one of the small and grimy ventilation grates and pushed his flesh hand inside to grope for the cloth package he left there. He had little hidey holes like this one all over the city, a dozen just around his building.

The telescope was small but good quality, and was enough for him to verify that the strike teams were not yet moving, but there was an achingly familiar figure making its way up the staircase.

Rogers, Steven Grant.

Captain America.

His _mission_.

The one that had changed everything.

Heading for his apartment presumably.

He had a choice then. To turn back and slip away, or to go and meet him.

The more logical thing to do would be to quietly slip away. But looking at the poorly disguised soldiers circling the place that had been his home for almost a year, his little piece of comfort, woke something inside him.

It was a cold and sharp burning thing that filled his chest suddenly, bringing sudden life to his usually numb body.

He thought of the plums he didn’t have the time to eat. Of the woman he’d paid in crumpled bills to give him a blowjob behind the old theater. He thought of the stunning, mind blowing pleasure that had almost made him pass out when she’d wrapped her lips around him. He had no recollection of other instances of oral sex, any other instance of experiencing this kind of pleasure but his memories couldn’t be trusted anyway. There were things he _knew_ , but never remembered experiencing. Knowledge was a fact of life for him, experience was something new and precious. He thought of the smell of ripe oranges when he tore into their skin, the tangy, sour-sweet taste of grapefruits. He thought of the way it felt when he got up in the night to just walk for hours, aimlessly, without a target in mind.

Then he thought of the person who used his face and name to commit a crime and put all those hounds on his trail. The person who _took_ the fragile peace away from him.

When he was a Fist of Hydra he was expected to deliver results in the shortest, most efficient way possible. He could feel that cold part of him waiting, ready to be pulled out again.

This felt different though; it was a completely different state of mind. His heart was beating double-time, his lips were oddly dry. It was not the cold readiness of a mission.

It was something new, something different.

It took him a moment to put a name to what he was feeling.

_Rage_.

Cold, all encompassing rage that almost took his breath away from him.

He didn’t have much, but the person who took away what he did have was going to pay. The Winter Soldier was made to instill terror in his masters’ enemies.

So he would do what he was made for, only this time he would be his own master.

* * *

He watched Rogers move, speak, gesticulate. His eyes almost watering and voice shaking with emotion, calling him Bucky, the name of his fallen friend.

He wasn’t, though. He wasn’t a heroic soldier. He was carrying dead man’s face, most probably inhabiting his body where impressions and almost-memories would sometimes assault him at the oddest of times, but it was _not him_.

“Do you remember me?” The Captain asked, his voice wrecked.

There were two syringes in his sleeve. One a fast acting chemical substance that was lethal enough to kill even Captain America. The other a powerful, if short acting sedative.

“I saw the Smithsonian exhibition,” he answered, feeling oddly disquieted when the other man’s face crumpled.

He could hear the footsteps on the staircase leading up, the impending attack, even over the earnest words of this strangely familiar man.

He relaxed his shoulders, tilting his body towards Rogers, lowering his eyes and pushing out his lower lip. He curved his body to say submission/confusion/pain. Males were exceedingly suggestive creatures, especially ones used to command. It required a certain amount of empathy and it made them all the more easy to manipulate. He made sure to let out a shuddering breath.

It wasn’t a whole ten seconds before Rogers was lowering his shield and reaching his arms up to hold him.

It was barely an effort to simulate a reciprocal hug, to fold his body into that warm, big one. This close the man’s scent was strangely alluring, warm and almost familiar. Most people smelled wrong to him, odd somehow, but the Captain smelled _right_. He pressed his cheek to the captains neck, tucking his head under his jaw to make sure Rogers wouldn’t be able to dodge and slam the custom syringe into his carotid artery. The cylinder emptied in 0.04 seconds and all Rogers had the time to do was jerk, his eyes wide and betrayed before he dropped like a stone.

He threw away the empty syringe, stepped over the Captain’s body and pulled his emergency bag out from under the floorboards.

He probably should have used the poison, but it was surprisingly easy to choose the sedative, his body almost acting on its own, the Captain’s scent, heavy and vibrant, sitting oddly in his nostrils, in his belly, on his fingertips.

He was going to go up to the roof where he had stashed an especially prepared synthetic rope. Zipping down the twenty floors would take seventy-five seconds, less than the strike teams would need to get through the diversion at the door. The chopper he could hear in the air wouldn’t be able to get close between the tightly-fitted buildings. He would land behind the building, near a manhole he’d carefully loosened weeks ago. It was a warren in there, a labyrinth of interconnecting canals that dated hundreds of years and often didn’t exist on any maps. They would need to wait for dogs to catch his trail again. It would give him enough time to make his escape. Next he would find the man who’d framed him for the bombing in Vienna and _make an example from him_.

He might not be the fist of Hydra any more, but he was still the Winter Soldier, and he was going to show the world what the costs were of hounding him.

He’d been caught and caged once before, he would never be again.

* * *

It took ten days.

Just ten days to track down the man who had put a lot of effort into having the whole damn world look for the Winter Soldier.

There was a cold fire burning in his chest as he let himself into the small B&B. This new century was surprisingly accommodating for people with his unique skillset. A visit to a home improvement shop and he came out not only with the tools he needed, but also a plastic suit that would cover his whole body, latex gloves, plastic goggles and paper masks.

He picked the lock on the room he’d already marked before and slipped inside. He could smell the scent of decomposition the moment he entered the room. Since there was no body in the main room, he checked the bathroom next. There was a body in the bathtub, obviously dead for at least five days.

He put his bag down and stripped the flashy, knee-length men’s coat, took the red wig off him as well as the glasses and pulled out the plastic painters suit. He dressed quickly, efficiently and didn’t bother with weapons.

Helmut Zemo might be a dangerous, trained man but he was still a _man_. The Soldier would have no problems subduing him no matter the weaponry he had.

In the room he found a red book.

Control Codes.

He stationed himself near the door, in the blind spot and let himself sink into that kind stillness that came to him with the cold. It didn’t matter if he needed to wait for five minutes or for five hours. He would wait. And when the man came back, he would show him the cost of trying to control the Winter Soldier.

* * *

He stared at the man on the floor, his metal hand stuffed into the man’s mouth almost wrist deep to make sure he wouldn’t be able to say the Control Codes.

“I was not your true target. Only a pawn in your game,” he said slowly, looking into the man’s eyes and not seeing any fear.

A fanatic.

He nodded, mostly to himself and shifted position above the pinned man.

“That’s okay, I will be using you as my pawn too.”

* * *

He left the man alive, files of evidence set carefully around his shivering, whimpering form, the wig and outfit he’d used to pretend to be the Winter Soldier; even the body of the psychiatrist was placed carefully near the man.

Killing Zemo would have been a mercy at this point, his body broken beyond any hope of repair.

He found that there was no mercy to be found in him.

As he took of the soiled painting suit and packed all his tools, and made a last sweep of the room to make sure he left no traces behind, he found that he’d missed this. Not the violence maybe, but the sense of comfort from knowing he was doing something he was very good at. There was no confusion, no doubt, only confidence.

 

* * *

He had the man on the ground, garrote wire wrapped around one metal wing and boot between shoulder blades, before he recognized him.

It was ironic that the press kept calling him insane and a freak, but he wasn’t the one hurtling through the air with nothing more to protect him than the flimsy metal wings that tore to ribbons in his hands.

He knelt down, his knee pressing harshly at the black man’s neck and had reached for the other wing when he saw the eyes of the man he’d downed. They were wide, the black surrounded by white, indicating true panic.

This man was terrified, he’d met the Soldier twice, and neither of those encounters had gone well for him. Still, his loyalty to the Captain made him chase after the Soldier, even though he had to know that he had no chance in an actual fight.

The blind terror in the man’s eyes was familiar though. It made something inside him twist and rebel oddly.

He pulled his arm away, the metal plates rearranging with a quiet click-clack sound.

* * *

“Buck!” The call came almost at the same time as the sudden touch on his shoulder. The Captain was right behind him, having tracked him down again. Most of the world had given up on tracking him after the Soldier repeated his message a few more times, using highly visible individuals that had hidden Hydra ties. He made it clear that trying to capture him was just not worth the cost.

The only person who never listened was Rogers. During the last six months, the man had managed to track him down five times already.

The touch to his shoulder was still a nasty surprise, he hadn’t expected the Captain to have been this close already.

He launched a blow in response immediately, his left hand arching like a deadly weapon. The Captain managed to catch the arm mid-motion, but he had to use both his hands and twist his body to buffer the force of the blow. The Captain’s grip was as unbreakable as the Soldier’s blows were unstoppable, but it still wasn’t enough to truly stop him. Using his flesh arm as a pivot point and the Captain’s solid stance, the Soldier launched himself into a half sideways flip, hooking both thighs around the man’s head. As soon as he felt his muscles lock, he twisted his whole body. It wasn’t even a conscious decision, just a move trained so deeply into his muscle memory it became instinct.

It was only the Captain’s incredible speed and strength that allowed him to avoid death by a broken neck. The man dropped under him, taking away his point of resistance and they both crashed to the ground. Being already in the air, the Soldier relaxed his body to take the impact fairly painlessly. With both his arms occupied and his center of gravity completely fucked, and with 200+ pounds of fighter hanging off his neck, the Captain went down hard. The harsh crack of broken bone was loud and shocking, like a sudden gunshot.

The Soldier’s heartbeat doubled without any reason, and between one second and the next he was crouching a few feet away from the Captain, one of his hunting knives raised as if to defend, while his opponent was deathly pale and obviously fighting to stay conscious, his collarbone and upper am obviously shattered.

He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and hesitated. 

The Captain’s eyes were closed tightly, skin beaded with sweat. His undamaged hand clenched tightly over the broken shoulder. His breathing was shallow and shocky; it was obvious he was fighting unconsciousness.

The Soldier put the knife back into its sheath, the black matte steel sliding soundlessly into the high quality gear. He straightened slowly, his body seeming to go into higher alert, even though the fight was effectively over. He should finish the Captain then and there, end the threat the man posed once and for all. 

_Finish his mission_.

Instead, he rifled through the man’s pockets until he found the cheap, disposable phone and flipped it open. He stood over the panting, pale man and scrolled through the last numbers, finding only one incoming and outgoing number. 

He hit dial and dropped the phone on the man’s chest, walking away before the Captain gathered himself enough to speak.

* * *

The Soldier didn’t have nightmares often, he rarely ever slept deeply enough to dream.

But every time he closed his eyes now, he heard the crack of shattered bones and saw the strangely vulnerable look in the Captain’s eyes. Every time they had met, the Soldier caused the Captain pain: broken bones, bullet wounds, drugs, unmitigated violence. 

Every time they had met the stupid man stared at the Soldier with unfathomable trust in his eyes.

He _hated_ it.


	2. Chapter 2

He expected the last encounter to teach the Captain that the Soldier would not be contained, would not be _stopped_.

He expected the man to give up.

And while things changed, it wasn’t what he expected either.

There were eyes on him. Every new city, every new place... In just a few days there would be that prickle on the back of his neck and he would know somebody was watching.

No.

Not _somebody_.

He knew perfectly well _who_ was watching.

It drove him quietly crazy.

He could feel it when he exercised in his room, when he walked around the city, when he researched. They would haunt him for days on end and then suddenly disappear for weeks.

He was jittery and nervous, unable to find that peace he had felt in Bucharest. His sleep patterns were shot to hell, the calmness of before exchanged for inexhaustible energy.

Where he was content to explore new tastes and smells before, carefully making his way in a world he didn't recognize, he now couldn’t wait any longer. He ate like a horse, buying every kind of fruit he could find, going to restaurants, ordering exotic dishes. He went to movies, to arcades, to botanical gardens. He wanted to to see everything, experience everything. It was hard staying two weeks in one place, something in him forcing him to _move, move, move_...

Underneath it all was still that cold thread of rage.

 

* * *

He wasn’t looking for Hydra operatives.

_They_ came looking for him.

He didn’t remember much of that day in Lyon, really. One moment he was looking at fresh strawberries at a roadside stall and the next some distant part of his brain recognized familiar patterns of movement.

He knew, even before he saw the men, that they were Hydra.

He reached into his pocket and turned up the volume on the mp3 player he always had on him, the music a great way to disturb the sounds around him and defend him from the possible use of Code Words, letting the cold take him under.

When he surfaced again he burned a bloody trail through Lyon and the surrounding suburbs, leaving only the dead in his wake.

Standing in the middle of an empty communications hub, a small base hidden near Lyon, splattered with blood and other matter, body aching from a myriad of lesser wounds, he realised he felt good.

It _felt_ good.

The jittery, nervous tension was gone from his body. Tired and battered, he felt more relaxed than he remembered ever feeling over the last two years.

If they were so keen on bringing the fight back to him, he wasn’t going to hide away from it.

They wanted their Winter Soldier so badly, let them have a dose of their own medicine.

* * *

There was a gift waiting for him at the door to the small flat he was renting. A duffel bag that smelled like the Captain.

Inside there was a full kevlar tactical outfit remarkably similar to that which he’d worn on the last mission, and a phone. He smashed the phone immediately, but laid the jacket, underlayer and combat pants in a neat line on the floor. He looked at the black, lightweight outfit with it’s myriad of buckles and hidden sheaths. He thought of the number of weapons he could easily hide in it. Of the sheer psychological scare factor. Of the man who didn’t even have the sense to carry a gun into battle, and the strange fact that it was very clearly a _gift_. A gift the Soldier was going to use to _murder_ as many Hydra agents as he could track down.

He circled the clothes, dressed only in a pair of jeans that would never be the same after his recent rampage, and considered the gift. If it had been something sentimental, something meant to remind him of the man he _never _was, he would have thrown it away and made a true effort to disappear.__

__This, this was _useful_._ _

__It was _new_._ _

__He walked another circle around the clothes before he sighed and reached for his pants, oddly eager to try them on, see if they felt as well tailored as it looked._ _

__They did._ _

__* * *_ _

__The next base was in Poland, a post-industrial borough of Warsaw. He spent weeks gathering intel and was ready to hit the base today, carrying more than enough ordinance to pulverise anything alive inside the mostly underground edifice._ _

__He’d detached himself from the shadows of the building across the one he wanted to hit, intent on forcing his way in, when he felt that now familiar prickle. It was different from before, though._ _

__“What are you doing here?” he asked into the dark, not even turning his gaze from his target._ _

__He could see another shadow coming closer to him from an adjacent street. The big frame with the improbable vee shape of his torso could only be one man._ _

__“Bucky.” The man’s voice always sounded like it was coming from something broken when he spoke to the Soldier._ _

__He shifted, turning to look at the Captain, relishing the feeling of the tac gear not even whispering against his skin. With his mask and goggles on, he was no more than a darker shadow amongst others._ _

__“You know what I am going to do,” the Soldier said mildly, noticing for the first time that the Captain wore nondescriptive clothing and there was no shield in sight._ _

__He was armed this time._ _

__Careful, the Soldier shifted to counter an attack, the scales of his outer-armor plating on his metal arm recalibrating for close combat._ _

__“Considering half of the world is in upheaval about the last slaughterhouses you left in your wake and how many Hydra bases there still are, yeah Buck, I know what you’re planning.”_ _

__“You planning on stopping me?” The question was mild, curious even. It belied the tension that started coiling in his muscles._ _

__He had a scent for his prey now, a taste for their blood and he _would not give it up_._ _

__“No,” the Captain said, slow but sure. His voice was low and smooth, so different from other people. “I came to help.”_ _

__The Soldier stared._ _

__The Captain pulled a gun from under his blue jacket._ _

__“I’m here to watch your back.”_ _

__Like the Soldier was ever going to let him anywhere near his back when the man was armed. Was he an idiot? Still, the idea was…novel. Somebody to guard the exits. It was very…new. It sent a shiver of excitement down his back._ _

__However he couldn’t really trust the man’s words. Words without proof were meaningless and the Captain sometimes seemed to be a creature from a completely different world, all the more strange in this dingy little alley._ _

__Fine then, he would test the Captain and see if there was even a speck of truth in what he was offering._ _

__“See this door?” The Soldier motioned at the red-painted fire escape door._ _

__The man nodded._ _

__“Once I am through, don’t let anybody out.”_ _

__He didn’t wait for verbal agreement, but was out and through the door with one solid blow from his metal arm._ _

__When the surprised Hydra personnel realised their perimeter had been breached, he focused on the guards, letting a lot of the drones slip by him._ _

__Let them escape, let the precious Captain see the fresh-faced youths and hesitate. Let him break his word and take pity on the scientists and the drones, all those people who had been perfectly comfortable denying the Soldier even the barest shred of pity when they had been the ones with the power, but were now willing to snivel and beg, just to live._ _

__Let the Captain prove just what he was, let him see what the Soldier was. Let him _break_ this strange connection._ _

__* * *_ _

__His gloves creaked when he folded his hands into fists, blood dripping slowly from the soaked leather and kevlar._ _

__He walked slowly towards the fire escape he’d entered through, knowing he would find the alley empty of bodies and empty of the Captain, the cut permanent finally._ _

__Instead he found a scene of chaos._ _

__The door was closed and the terrified agents he’d let slip from him were trying to organize some kind of battering ram to force open the door. He could see the way the door gave a bit under the blows of the improvised ram, and then slammed closed again. The oddly organic movement indicating that there was a body blocking the door from the other side._ _

__He dropped his guns into the thigh holsters and pulled out his hunting knives. He wanted them to scream. He wanted their blood on his hands. They were always so happy with him when he did what they order, killed who and how they wanted. Let them have what they worked so hard to achieve._ _

__He made sure to leave two unconscious on the ground, made sticky by blood and other body fluids. Once it became quiet, the door swung open of its own accord, and the Soldier saw the Captain standing there, face pale but calm. He had a few days’ worth of beard on his face, the scruff changing his face, making him look older somehow._ _

__The Soldier pulled his goggles off and pulled the mask down, exposing his face. The reaction was instantaneous: the man focussed on his face, his pupils dilated and his lips parted. All classic signs of physical attraction._ _

__Or fear._ _

__Making sure to keep eye contact, the Soldier leaned down and slit the throat of the still breathing agent. He made sure to make it ugly too, cutting the trachea and muscles deep enough to almost behead the kid. Making sure to scrape the edge of his knife over bone. Blood spurted on the wall and the ground and the boy died, gurgling desperately for the air he wasn’t getting._ _

__The Captain followed the movement with his eyes, his eyelashes stunningly long against his cheeks._ _

__He never took his eyes from the Soldier. Not when the young agent jerked, and not when his body finally stilled._ _

__The Captain’s eyes, dark and calm, watched the Soldier as he moved to the last agent. Making sure he kept eye contact with the Captain, the Soldier put the tip of the knife over the young man’s belly, ignoring the terrified squealing of the newly awakened man. This one wore a different uniform, the science corps and the Soldier’s chest burned with cold that almost took his breath away from him. The Captain’s eyes were a deep shade of blue, like the deep, cold sea and just as unfathomable as he watched the Soldier use his metal hand to keep the agent’s head still while he slowly cut him open from navel to chest with the other. The smell of blood and flesh became almost unbearable in the cramped space, yet the Captain never once turned his eyes away. The Soldier couldn’t say if it even bothered the superhuman, his focus was so complete._ _

__Throughout the whole mission, the Soldier had kept his own focus firmly on his actions, his body totally under control. It was only now, dripping blood and death all over an old concrete floor, that he was pinned by surprisingly clear blue eyes and what felt his heartbeat double in tempo. The Soldier’s body was always under his control, his heartbeat responding more to his will to his body. Yet now his heartbeat was steadily increasing, his lips felt dry and chapped even though they had been protected by his mask the whole op._ _

__His body was betraying him in a completely new and unexpected way, subjugating his control and reactions in ways he not only didn’t remember but didn’t _know_._ _

__He looked at the Captain’s face, at his slightly parted lips, and thought of the woman in Bucharest that he had paid for oral sex, of the way it had felt to have the warm, wet mouth touch him intimately. He was now confronted with the sudden, blinding realisation that he wanted it again._ _

__He _wanted_._ _

__He came closer to the Captain, his boots squelching on the blood-soaked floor. He could see the way the man’s impressive muscles tensed, tendons on his neck standing out sharply for a moment and his nostrils flaring._ _

__They never broke eye contact._ _

__“Your mouth,” The soldier said, and his voice, already shot to hell became so gravelly, it scratched his throat coming out. He reached out with one finger, the metal one, to touch the corner of the Captain’s lips, leaving a red streak of blood behind._ _

__The Captain didn’t flinch. Didn't back down._ _

__Still holding his eyes, the Captain sank to his knees in a single, graceful movement, right then and there, among the freshly-killed bodies, and the blood that seemed to cover every square inch of the corridor._ _

__The Soldier put away his knife and unhooked the handgun from his left thigh, the muzzle still warm from all the shots he’d fired. He put it to the flesh on the joining of the Captain’s neck and shoulder and flicked the safety off._ _

__“I want it.”_ _

__The other man didn’t pretend not to understand. He reached his hands to the belts of the Soldiers pants and started pulling them open, his fingers long and surprisingly graceful for all the banked power he could feel in the way he pulled the straps apart._ _

__His arm whirred quietly and the Captain froze, his eyes darting up, wary suddenly._ _

__The Soldier let the arm recalibrate fully, relaxing from full combat mode. The outer armor plates shifted to a less rigid position, the sensors opening up a little, allowing the Soldier more sensation now that he wasn’t in danger of being overwhelmed by pain and made ineffective._ _

__Feeling the reassuring strength of the wall behind his shoulders and the scent of blood wafting from the corridor leading to the base proper meant there was no danger to him, he allowed himself to focus on the man kneeling at his feet._ _

__His right hand was still holding the Derringer to the Captain’s neck, the magazine holding only three more bullets. His left reached to the man’s face again. It was a credit to the man’s character, or maybe just his stupidity, that he didn’t flinch at all._ _

__His fingers spread out over the strongly defined jaw, powerful yet looking unbearably fragile caged in the metal. The Captain had to be aware that with this much contact, the Soldier could shatter his jaw, or even tear it out of his head completely. Yet all he does in response is to tilt his head a little into the touch, his eyes fluttering closed._ _

__Unbelievably long eyelashes spread over the flushed cheeks. His lips parted at the first brush of a metal thumb over them, and the Soldier pushed the digit in without any resistance. It breached the barrier of the soft lips and sensation bloomed out suddenly. Wetness and heat, the slick slide of a tongue fearlessly wrapping around the digit._ _

__There was a sudden sound, a shuddery exhale that broke the eerie silence, and the Soldier realised he was who’d made that sound. He was fully erect now, his cock straining against his pants, and heart tripping all over itself, it was beating so fast. It was as if he’d lost all control of his body. He could feel himself sweating in his tac jacket, beads of salty moisture gathering on his upper lip, his whole focus on the thumb still in the Captain’s mouth, and the way the man sucked and licked at it._ _

__He jerked his hand away from the maddening mouth, tilting his head down and feeling his hair fall forwards as he watched the Captain finish opening the double layer of buttons on his combat pants and pushed the underwear down, freeing the Soldier’s straining cock. There was no hesitation, no wasting time. The Captain wrapped a large, warm hand around the base of the erection and fit as much as he could into his mouth. The soldier’s whole body spasmed, hips jerking forward, stuffing even more of his cock down the Captain’s mouth. The years of discipline held, keeping the hand holding the gun rock steady, but inside the Soldier was overwhelmed._ _

__It was wet, hot and tight inside the other man’s mouth. He could feel the slick slide of a tongue trying to rub against his cock, feel the little shocks of pain where teeth scraped the sensitive flesh, hearing the wet, choked sound the other man made._ _

__In one glorious motion the Captain let go of his grip on the Soldier's cock, instead transferring both hands to take hold of his hips and move his head to take in as much as possible. The Soldier’s breath hitched as he felt the head of his cock hit the constriction he dimly realised was the entrance to the Captain’s throat. The man on his knees made a wet, painful noise, pulled off a bit, took a deep breath, and went down again. This time the Soldier’s cock hit the barrier and passed through._ _

__He had thought that what he’d felt that time in Bucharest had been mind-blowing. It didn’t hold a candle to what he was experiencing now. His heart was beating double-time, so hard it almost hurt. He was sweating harder than during any training he’d ever had, was dizzy even though he had not ingested or injected any chemical substances. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man kneeling at his feet. There was a frisson of excitement that kept shooting up his spine at the thought of having such a dangerous man perform such an act. He couldn’t remember ever having power over anybody that was actually a threat to him. The man’s big shoulders were curling towards the Soldier, his huge palms spread tightly over the Soldier’s hips, fingers digging into the kevlar of the tac gear. His eyes were tightly closed, drops of moisture shimmering on the long lashes, tears being forced out every time the man pushed himself down the Soldier’s cock, his nose touching the firm muscles of the Soldier’s abdomen. His lips were stretched tightly around the cock in his mouth, shiny with spit and red from friction. He was flushed and looked almost in pain with fierce concentration etched into his features, but he wouldn’t stop. Every few moments he would make a wet, choking sound and jerk back only to force himself even further, his throat convulsing spastically around the head._ _

__The Soldier ripped his metal hand away from the man, vaguely aware of the increasing tightness twisting inside his body, and slammed it against the wall at his hip. The plaster and concrete below crumbled like sand underneath his fingers, and he slammed his head back as well when the tension broke and he _came_. _ _

__It was so powerful it hurt, every single muscle in body locking up for a moment and a pleasure he didn’t know his body capable of overwhelmed him. His muscles clenched and released, hips jerking forwards, this time choking the Captain for real as he spilled himself inside the man’s mouth and throat._ _

__It took an unfathomably long time before his body calmed down enough to look back at the man at his feet._ _

__The Captain’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut, his face red and his jaw stretched open as he strained to keep the Soldier’s cock as deep inside his throat as possible. There were tear tracks on his cheeks and the tendons on his neck stood out in sharp relief. Glancing lower, the Soldier could see the Captain’s right hand rubbing roughly between his own legs._ _

__The Soldier ripped his metal hand free of the wall behind him and spread the dirty, metal fingers over the hot skin on the side of the Captain's face and pushed him away. His cock slid from the man’s mouth with a gush of saliva and come, spilling excess over the man’s chin._ _

__The Captain gasped, pressing his face into the Soldier’s groin as he shuddered, all tension leaving his body in a rush._ _

__Carefully, the Soldier holstered the Derringer, before reaching his flesh hand to trace the puffy, abused lips and spreading fluid over the man's face with just the tips of two fingers._ _

__Later, he wouldn’t know why he waited until the Captain had opened his eyes and looked at him before pushing himself away and fading into the darkness._ _

__He could hear the man calling the dead sergeant's name, but since it wasn't his name, he didn’t bother responding._ _


	3. Chapter 3

The Captain became surprisingly adept at following the Soldier, especially to the sites of his next hits. Sometimes he would show himself before the mission start and offer to guard the Soldier’s retreat.

More often though, he would show himself after the operation end. They ended up in dark alleys where the Captain would fall to his knees and open the Soldier’s pants with ever growing self-assurance, taking the Soldier’s ever-eager cock into his mouth and making him come explosively every time.

This time was a little different.

The base turned out to be one where the Soldier had undergone a large part of his reconditioning. He hadn’t planned what he would do, but the moment he entered the old lab his memories of the place came back. Vicious, colorful, and overwhelming.

When he came back to himself, he was standing over a mutilated corpse, his guns holstered and his hands aching. He was positively filthy with blood and gore. Once the moment of disorientation had passed, he _knew_ what he had done, even though he didn’t remember it. 

He walked out of the base, no guards left alive to stand in his way. His flesh hand was shaking and he couldn’t quite determine why. He wasn’t hurt, the mp3 player was still blasting music into one of his ears, the words of the songs an effective way to stop any Code phrases. All of them were at least two words long. His body went into a panic at the first, usually, and he had trained himself to focus on the songs constantly playing in his ear. 

The Ukrainian forest was quiet around him, the trees old and hiding many secrets. It was just shy of sunrise and the birds were singing up a storm.

He was completely alone.

He pulled the earbud out, tired of the noise suddenly, and set to hike back to his car, confident nobody would be at his back anyway.

He never reached the car, finding the Captain waiting for him not that far from the base. The man was wearing a dark, hooded sweatshirt and jeans, hiking boots and two-day-old scruff. The moment the Soldier allowed himself to be seen, the man scrambled to attention, his eyes flicking up and down the Soldier’s body and becoming alarmed.

“Buck! Are you hurt?” The Captain approached, even though the Soldier bared his teeth at him, warning that he was not in the mood for the usual games. The man didn’t heed the warning, also as usual, and put his hands on the Soldier, patting down the soaked tac vest in search of holes.

“I remembered that place,” he said suddenly. This was new. It wasn’t something he did, just talking without a purpose. But the words were spilling from his lips before he’d even become aware of them. “I think I was kept there for a very long time.” His voice was shaking and becoming suddenly raspy. “I don't want to go back there,“ he swallowed, his throat so dry it clicked. “Please.”

The Captain froze for a moment, his hands still on the blood-soaked vest before looking the Soldier in the eye. There was an expression of so much pain on his face, outright misery, it made the Soldier wonder if maybe the Captain had been injured in the fight. 

“Are you all right?”

The Captain’s eyes were dark and earnest, his hands smeared with blood from the Soldier’s clothes. 

The touch _burned_. 

It was wrong somehow, he _knew_ it was wrong, he just couldn't remember _why_.

“No, never mind. Stupid question,” The Captain’s hands slid up to the Soldier’s shoulders, almost restraining him, and his voice was so full of pain the Soldier wondered if maybe the Captain was hurt somehow. He cast a discrete eye over the man’s body, but couldn’t see any obvious signs of battle or wounds. “Look, I have a cabin rented out not an hour from here. It has a large bathroom and washing machine, and I have some spare clothes,” The blond man locked his eyes with the Asset, his gaze so damn clear it drove the Soldier quietly insane. “Let me take you there and help you clean up, okay?”

The Soldier knew he should refuse. The man kept pushing for closeness when the Soldier wanted distance, following him when the Soldier made it clear he didn't want that either. The man never listened, and giving in to him even more was just asking for trouble. Somehow, the man just seemed like _trouble_ to the Soldier anyway.

* * *

The Captain didn’t speak again. Not on the way, not when he led the Soldier to the bathroom and started pulling the soaked gear off. The vest squelched when it hit the floor. So did the pants. He didn’t stop until the Soldier was naked, his hand still skimming the Soldier’s skin. He didn’t seem to mind that it wasn't always flesh that he touched, but metal too. There was never any change in the quality of touch, the care he showed towards somebody who could kill him, who actually had come damn _close_ to killing him.

By the time the worst of the mess was off, the Captain was almost as filthy as the Soldier. He didn't seem to be bothered by it much though. He looked down at his hands and clothes, now smeared with bloodstains, and grimaced a bit before reaching up and pulling his shirt with an easy overhead motion. The Soldier stared at the way the skin stretched over the sharply defined muscles. The width of the Captain’s chest became something more as he watched the powerful pectoral flex as the man discarded the soiled garment on the floor and reached for the belt of his pants. The Soldier was helpless to do anything else than simply follow the movement with his eyes. 

There was something mesmerising in the sight, the strong hands nimbly unbuckling the jeans and pushing the clothing down strong thighs.

***

Even though it had been almost two years, the feeling of hot water was still a shock. It was almost like something illicit, a sense of breaking the rules. Some part of him expected somebody to yell, the water to be yanked off, and some form of punishment to be meted out. His body always, always locked up during the first few moments of the warm water hitting his skin, and there was a brief flash of pain behind his eyes when memories threatened to come. He’d already remembered too much of his time with Hydra so he did his best to push the pain away. The pain was replaced with a stillness, a kind of numbness, a separation he could force himself to slide into. In that place there was no pain, no fear, but also no life. 

The touch of warm hands on his shoulders registered easily, and he had time to qualify the contact as either a threat that needed to be neutralized, or a direction to be followed. Almost before the Soldier had realized what he was doing, the Captain ran a soft cloth over the top of his shoulders, washing away the grime as well as the tension. 

The Soldier opened his eyes a little, and watched the man, feeling outside himself. Like his body wasn't his own again. The Captain wasn't looking at him anyway, or just making a production of _not_ looking the Soldier in the eye, as he carefully drew the soapy cloth down the Soldier’s arms. He pressed tightly into the tense muscles, kneading them a little. This touch wasn't impersonal, it was firm and caring. The man focussed on the slick skin in front of him, carefully sliding the cloth between every finger, not shying away from the dried blood or the filth stuck under the fingernails of the flesh hand. 

It felt nice. The careful closeness, the obvious care the Captain took with the Soldier’s body, the heat of the water beating down on them. 

Of his own volition the Soldier turned around, putting his back to the tiled wall and giving the man access to his front, the more vulnerable part of him. The Captain’s eyes misted over a little as he re-soaped the cloth and gently cleaned the most heavily scarred part of the Soldier’s chest where the shoulder plate was heat sealed to his skin. He ran the cloth down over the Soldier’s ribs, wide palm spreading over the hard jut of the Soldier’s hip before his eyes widened, as if realizing for the first time that they were both naked.

The Captain looked at the soapy cloth in his hands and then to the Soldier, his face flushed as if it just occurred to the man that he was running his hands all over the Soldier.

He dropped the cloth, his ears flushing even harder, the tips almost crimson.

“Can I touch you?” The Captain whispered, tilting closer.

The Soldier could feel his brows climbing into his hairline.

“Seriously?” he asked, voice dripping sarcasm. He looked pointedly from the other man’s naked body to his own equally naked one and back to the Captain. “You’re asking me this now?”

“I…” the Captain hesitated, realising the strangeness of his situation. The Soldier could see the hesitation, the fear in his eyes that he’d pushed too far. It was ridiculous. If the Soldier hadn’t wanted the Captain touching him, they wouldn’t be in a shower but in the battlefield right now. “I want to touch you,” the man’s voice was rough, dropping registers rapidly. “I’ll make it good, I promise.”

The Soldier didn't answer verbally, silence still an easier option, but he tilted his head up a little, showing more of his throat in the clearest sign of consent he could manage. 

The Captain smiled, soft and shaky, and put both his palms on the Soldier’s hips, then slid them up, his palms teasing at the sharply defined muscles, and over surprisingly sensitive nipples, until he reached the soap-slick shoulders. His fingers curled over the muscles there, thumbs tracing tiny circles on the Soldier’s collarbones. 

There was a very quiet whirr followed by a series of small clicks. He could feel Rogers stilling suddenly, his attention focused not on the Soldier, but on his arm. Hazily, he looked down to see that the larger outer-armor plates of his arm were slowly changing shape. With each quiet click, the larger segments showed tiny lines, a lot like a honeycomb, before separating into smaller plates. The whole shape of his arm changed, becoming softer, the smaller plates more flexible.

The Soldier wasn’t aware his arm could even _do_ something like this.

His whole body felt lazy, relaxed, sated. The Captain was a _danger_ yes, but not a _threat_ , and somehow the Soldier’s body responded like this in the man’s presence, in a way it never did before.

“Buck,” the Captain breathed, his hand reaching for the metal shoulder, where almost all of the plates separated into the tiny, honeycomb segments. He pressed his flesh fingers to the smooth metal, and the Soldier watched as the silver surface gave a little under the pressure. Not much, but enough to simulate something living. He could feel the touch the same way as usual, pressure sensors giving him a sense of presence, touch, heat, and moisture. The calibration was inversely proportional to the strength of the stimulus. During a fight he was only vaguely aware of pressure, movement, and temperature, the sensors shutting down when stimulus was outside of expected ranges. This gave him the ability to remain operational during a fight, the arm giving him functions no ordinary human could ever dream of.

During tasks requiring high articulation and sensitivity, the sensors opened up, letting him feel the slightest differences in shape, texture, and temperature, sometimes chemical composition.

This however was something else, something completely new.

He switched his gaze from the strangely vulnerable spread of the Captain’s fingers over his oddly relaxed arm, to the man’s face. His pupils were blown, leaving not even a slimmest ring of blue, his face was flushed, the red color splotchy and uneven. More intense around the high point of his cheeks, barely pink around the jaw, almost turgid at the tips of the man’s ears. His lips were parted, his tongue darting out in quick licks as his focus was taken completely with the arm. He touched it so gently, as if it would shatter under a firmer touch. The Captain ran his hand from the widest part of the Soldier’s shoulder, his palm covering the red star completely, before sliding down to the elbow, briefly covering the well articulated joint, before travelling further to the powerful wrist and strangely delicate fingers for such a brutal piece of engineering.

The Soldier watched, the pulse beating wildly in the Captain’s neck as he followed the lines of his metal arm, tested the unexpected give of the honeycomb plates, and realised the Captain was excited by it.

***

They ended up on the queen-sized bed in the adjacent bedroom, the Soldier stretched out on the greying sheets, and the Captain stretched over him, mouthing his nipples like he couldn’t live without them.

The Soldier thought dimly that he should be threatened, uncomfortable with the big man hovering over him like that, but all he could focus on was the slick slide of tongue across his chest and then the firm scrape of teeth over it. The Captain was making odd, small, _pleased_ noises as he all but chewed the small nipples. He licked them, sucked firmly, bit, and even scraped his beard over the swelling flesh. 

It seemed that once given permission to touch naked skin, the Captain was determined to have it all. His hands were wandering, moving smoothly from the Soldier’s upper ribs to his waist, framing his hips and kneading at the flesh under his palm, then sliding lower to his ass and kneading that too. The Captain’s legs, muscular, warm, and covered in soft little hairs were moving restlessly, sliding over and between the Soldier’s. Between the unrelenting attention to his nipples, the hands that greedily touched all the skin they could, and the way the Captain would break his torment of his nipples to mouth randomly at a collarbone or tongue the raised scars surrounding the metal shoulder plate, the Soldier barely had time to catch his breath. His heart was beating so hard it felt as though he would arrest any minute. His throat was still dry, and all he could reliably do was hang onto the wide shoulders of the man above him.

He touched the tips of his metal fingers to the Captain’s chest. Even the small plates on his fingers separated into smaller segments, giving his fingers almost human flexibility. His sensors were blown wide open, feeding him a flood of information. They were so sensitive now that he could even feel the pulse of the blood in the tiny blood vessels in the other man’s skin.

He was feeling dizzy with the scent of musk of the man hovering above him, the way the Captain’s skin was now lightly beaded with sweat, so soon after their shower, the way the other man held both their cock’s in his fist as he thrust his hips against the Soldier’s belly. The friction was taking the Soldier’s breath away, punching the pleasure higher and higher. His own body held rigidly still as the Captain labored above him, his muscles bunching up with every sinuous roll of his body against the Soldier. The scent of sex was heavy in the air, clogging his nostrils adding to the giddiness.

The Captain had his eyes closed, lashes fanning across his cheeks, face, neck, and chest still flushed, the free hand massaging clumsily at the Soldier’s pectoral. It was sending short, little sparks of heat down from his chest to his groin. He couldn't say what was pulling his attention more, the mind-blowing pleasure, the sweet friction on his cock, or the feel of the big body straining over his. The Captain tensed and came suddenly, hot seed splashing over his own cock and belly, scalding him, filling the air between them with the unique scent.

The man gasped and shuddered, his bulk almost crushing the Soldier, but oddly pleasant all the same. Very warm. The Soldier liked warmth, so he arched into the large frame above him, his metal hand curling warningly over the shocking vulnerable line of the man’s throat. Half insensate, the Captain tried to kiss him again, but the Soldier twisted his head away; the thought of teeth so close to his mouth, of something pressing into his mouth making the tension in his body ratchet, and not in a pleasurable way. Instead, the Captain mouthed at the edge of the Soldier’s jaw, biting gently at the bone and sucking at the skin, his lips rasping over the light scruff. He kept his hips moving, dragging his still-half hard cock over the the slicked skin of the Soldier’s belly. He changed his hold so that he was mostly just pressing both their cock’s into the Soldier’s come-slick belly and it was so good.

“Bucky.” the man was moaning in his ear, stroking the Soldier firmly, pushing him into his own release.

***

His next two attacks on Hydra bases were a bust. The first was empty, the second guarded so heavily he had to retreat, nursing two new gunshot wounds. 

Not long after, Hydra started coming for him, ambushing him in safe houses he’d appropriated. Suddenly, instead of the hunter, he’d become the prey.

There was no possible way they could have tracked him down, there was only one person who kept reliably finding him.

Two more close calls and a knife wound later, it became obvious that it wasn’t _him_ Hydra was tracking, but the Captain.

Enough was enough; he had a mission to finish and this strange thing he had with the Captain was proving to be more of a liability than he thought.

In a small Belarus town the Soldier burned every single notebook and piece of technology he owned, left everything else where it lay, and left his last safe house with nothing but the just-aquired clothes on his back.

This time, nobody would find him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, remember the warnings. This chapter is mild, but the following one can trigger some people.  
> And as always thanks to lovely NurseDarry for doing emergency betaing!

He spent three months on a fishing boat he’d boarded in Gdańsk, pretending to only speak broken Polish with a strong Ukrainian accent. Most of the other workers were illegal immigrants too. They got paid in cash and nobody asked any questions. The work consisted mostly of packing crates of illicit goods into the cargo hold, and then filling the empty spaces with ice. They did actual fishing work only when coast guard was close.

He kept to himself, made sure to keep long sleeves and gloves on at all times and worked harder than any other on board, the work easy and boring, but better than nothing.

By the time he was back on dry land he’d lost fifteen percent of his bodyweight, grown a beard that left only his eyes visible, and his hair was long enough to be tied up in a ponytail. The ship’s captain was so impressed with his work, he offered him a job guarding TIR transport from Norway to central Russia which was run by a brother of his.

For the next three months the Soldier travelled eastern Europe and western Russia in a surprisingly comfortable cabin of a new Jeep Wrangler Unlimited, guarding a cavalcade of thirty trucks. They made their slow way from Norway to Poland’s border, and then to Russia smuggling perfectly good meat collected in Poland then rebranded in Norway. He was provided with a Glock 19 and a Kalashnikov, a set of military-grade knives, a grenade (just the one), and a cell phone that seemed to always have coverage no matter what kind of hole the whole cavalcade ended up in. 

There were four jeeps in total, two men each armed to the teeth, and a smaller Jeep Cherokee with a wildly charming man speaking about nineteen languages who served as their guide and forward scout. For a smuggling operation the amount of security was obscene. All the guards were ex-military, most Specnaz. They had unit tatoos on their bodies and were disciplined and calm. This meant they were highly trained; more suited to highly paid mercenary work rather than guarding a cavalcade of trucks trying to sneak past various borders and highway patrols using forest roads and clever disguises. It didn’t escape his notice that every driver was also ex-military and very obviously trained in engineering, as any break in the road was fixed quickly and efficiently.

Things became more clear as to the reason for the excessive security when they reached Yaroslavl. A huge building complex, all gleaming white walls and stainless steel came into view. The buyer relieved them of their cargo and paid in cash a truly mind-boggling amount of money for such a simple job. It turned out that smuggling perfectly good meat across European borders was better paid than a simple assassination.

The Soldier spent a few weeks hitchhiking further into Russian territory. Whenever he ran out of money he simply observed the flow of people in the poorer parts of whatever city he found himself in. All he needed to do was find a drug dealer or a car thief, follow him to his boss and take their money. He even learned that if he didn’t hurt them too much, they would have money again in just a few days. 

The food tasted strangely familiar, nostalgic even. If he found himself in small villages or a tiny town, he learned that there would always be somebody willing to feed him a home-cooked meal and offer their spare room to sleep in as long as he paid in dollars or euros. By the time sixth months had passed, any trail he might have left was cold, Russia being good to him, money easy to obtain, and the food agreeable. The cold burn of anger in his chest faded without Hydra or the Captain to push and pull at it.

***

A month later he found himself in Yakutsk, and as the cold burned his skin and snow crunched under his boots, knowledge began to return to him.

The Soldier had been born here, he knew that. Knew the burning smell in crisp and terrifyingly cold air. Even the old tall apartment buildings with their small balconies and salmon-colored walls felt achingly familiar.

The Soldier walked, every street more familiar than the previous one. Dzerzhinskiego street would have a bank roughly in the middle of it. He also knew that if he walked further down the street, he would eventually reach the crossing with Stroiteley street. If he turned into it, there would be a scattering of small, poor houses and wide, old industrial structures.

One of the houses seemed particularly old, the wooden walls silver with age and windows that looked as though they’d been boarded up a long time ago.

The Soldier forced the old door, the wood giving easily under the power of his arm. Inside there were only empty, dusty rooms with trash scattered here and then. The house was so old even the squatters wouldn’t bother with it now. Led by knowledge rather than memory, the Soldier reached the back of the house, and the entrance to the damp smelling entrance to the half-basement. It stank of rot and dampness and seemed to be as empty as the rest of the house.

Keeping his flashlight in his flesh hand, the Soldier curled his metal one into a fist, knelt down and slammed his arm into the ground, burying it wrist-deep in filth.

There was a sudden crash and the false floor beneath him gave.

There was a dark, yawning pit in front of him now. A place was cold and had been long-abandoned, smelling of secrets and fear.

This was the place of his birth.

As the Soldier took the first step into the darkness that had created him, the anger awoke again.

***

The Soldier spent three weeks living on a roof in a small, quiet neighborhood in Niigata, Japan, with his rifle camouflaged, waiting for his target to appear. He didn’t know where or how he’d learned that a member of one of the highest echelons of Hydra lived in the house across from him, but he didn’t let it bother him. The anger, cold and vicious, burned in his chest and it was enough. Knowledge was knowledge, there was no need to question it.

The sun was punishingly bright, burning the back of his neck where he’d pulled his hair into a ponytail to cool off. The skin would prickle and burn, peel off during the night, and be healed by morning, only to burn again.

The first week he’d only left the roof once, to bring up more of his supplies. He made sure to leave no trail, even brought plastic containers to in which to store his body’s so that he wouldn't need to leave the roof until he’d had his target in his sights.

On third day of his silent vigil, eye pressed firmly to his scope, he heard a thunder of feet approaching him. He didn’t raise from his sprawl or react to the cacophony, mostly because it was obviously being caused by something weighing less than fifteen pounds. He did turn his head to look at the unusually noisily-moving cat as it rasped a curious sound at him.

The cat was black, with two white socks on its front paws and a glittery collar with the Kanji for “grace” stencilled in a gold font in front. The collar was flimsy and loose, obviously more of an ornament than an actual device for alerting potential prey of its presence, and the the cat was very…round.

The animal sat down beside him, green eyes curious and attentive as it caught his eye and made another squeaky sound at him. It seemed more curious than angry that the Soldier had taken possession of it’s roof.

***

The house across the street seemed like a normal household, if a rich one. There were people coming and going every day, shopping being delivered, trash taken out.

There was no sign of his target.

***

The cat spent a lot of time on the roof too, always present when it was time for the Soldier to eat. It made the odd, squeaky sound at him until he shared his food.

It was an oddly awe-inspiring feeling when the small animal took the food from his fingers, not reacting to the metal fingers any differently than to the flesh ones. 

Sometimes, when he lay stretched on his belly, eye glued firmly to the scope of his rifle, patiently waiting for his target to appear, he would feel a light, warm pressure against his side. After a while, he even stopped flinching at the unexpected contact.

***

After three weeks it became obvious that his target was not going to leave the house. It was with a sense of regret that he prepared for infiltrating the house. Some part of him wanted to stay there, safe and warm on that roof with his small feline companion.

There was a cold, howling anger at the edge of his mind that kept pushing him to act, to _kill_.

***

After the weeks of constant surveillance, getting in was easy. He broke the necks of the two security guards that he encountered, simply because there was no way into the building completely undetected.

Finding the master bedroom was also easy if he simply followed the security measures. 

The mp3 player was blasting quick-paced, clear words into his left ear.

The woman in the opulent bedroom was old and frail, her hair white as snow and skin paper thin. She was standing, her head barely even reaching his chest and the wrinkle-creased face still bore signs of stunning beauty. The Soldier’s hand was already shaking when he leveled his gun at the woman, his head hurting with vicious rage clattering inside, the howl of _kill, kill, kill_ that made it difficult to think. The anger was tinged with hysteria. Thready and volatile, it made him shake, made keeping his arm raised incredibly difficult.

The old woman wasn’t afraid though.

She raised one of her frail arms, her cold fingers touching the Soldier's cheek as he stood there trying to gain control of his body in the veritable howl his mind had become.  
Her touch _scorched_ him, blanking his mind with a terror so strong he felt all the recently eaten food crawl back up his throat.

“ _Pokaris_.”

It was not a Code Word, no hidden trigger in his psyche taking over his mind. Yet the terror he experienced at the word shut up even the cold rage inside him.

He went to his knees, his gun clattering uselessly on the expensive wooden floor.

***

The Soldier wasn’t sure what woke him from the haze he was immersed in. 

His body was sluggish and unresponsive, relaxed in a way that meant heavy sedation. He was strapped to a chair, the bonds obviously makeshift, ranging from handcuffs to duct tape to thin chains obviously repurposed from household supplies. None of those things would usually hold him but this wasn’t a usual situation.

He was very calm.

It was almost peaceful, just sitting there, in the dim garage and feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

The was no pain, no confusion, no anxiety.

His eyes hurt strangely when he slowly shifted them to look out through the open garage door to two guards waving to aid a large truck to maneuver slowly down the narrow residential street. The car sat low on its shocks, indicating armour or equipment.

Somewhere deep down, he knew it had come for him.

The odd, squeaky sound came again and slowly, he shifted his head to the side to watch.

Beside him, perched on a toolbox of all things was the cat. It had its head stretched towards him and was wobbling a bit on the old box. As soon as the cat realised he was looking at it, it made an extra loud squeaky meow, the exact same it’d done every day when dinner time came around and it begged food out of him.

Watching the demanding cat, frustrated with his obvious lack of response, something awoke in him again. It was the anger, slow and cold, burning in his chest, heavy and inescapable.

This time, instead of the steady stream of kill, kill, kill the anger whispered other things to him: the awe of the small helpless animal trusting him enough to clamber all over him and downright demand things from him. The strange pleasure of travelling without a purpose or timeline. The surprising pleasure of tasting fresh ripe fruit and feeling the sweet juice flooding his mouth. It didn't matter how many different things he’d tried, the flavors were always such a surprise. 

The memory of blond hair, wounded eyes, and touch that brought only pleasure. Memory of feeling safe with that huge body hovering over him.

The metal arm snapped though the bonds as if it was tissue paper. At the noise, the cat jumped and fled, disappearing into the shadows.

Breaking the rest of the bonds, the Soldier grabbed the chair he was sitting on to lob it at the first guard with enough force to break the man’s spine. He didn’t hesitate, forcing his heartbeat into overdrive to pump as much adrenaline into his system as was possible, launching himself at the second guard, using the metal hand to punch halfway through the man’s chest.

Yanking his hand free of the man’s body, he leapt up the nearest wall and climbed, running away as fast as he knew how.

**

He fled far and fast, but also carelessly, unnamed fear nipping at his heels. When he ended up back in Washington, it didn’t come as a surprise, that sense of being watched. It was rush hour, there were people milling everywhere, a sea of people rushing from one place to another. This made it easy to move among the people, hiding his presence.

As jumpy and stressed as he was, he still held his ground when the crowd on the street shifted and he saw the Captain.

The man looked different, worn and tired, with bags under his eyes and carrying an odd tension in his body. His hair was longer than its very short cut the Soldier remembered from previous meetings, and looked unkempt. His blue eyes seemed darker than usual, jaw tense in a way that suggested flight readiness. There was a kind of energy to him that set the Soldier on edge, something foreign and wildly out of place.

He didn’t like it.

The Captain wasn’t meeting his eyes.

He shifted his weight, ready to retreat, at least get more distance. He hesitated too long though. By the time he’d decided to flee, the Captain had moved, proving that his speed was as enhanced as his strength.

He felt the sting of the syringe, burning like betrayal, before the world went black.

 

 

Translations:  
Pokaris - humble yourself, spoken with negative connotations.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that there is dubious consent tag to this story and it is now that it comes into play. I warn you now so don’t come crying back to me that it’s non-consensual. The title is a very real part of the story and a warning in itself.
> 
> Soundtrack: Maroon5 - Animals, Apocalyptica- Not Strong Enough, Apocalyptica- I don’t care.

He woke up underground. 

He knew that even before he opened his eyes. There was something very unique about the quality of the air; no matter how filtered, how processed, it always smelled different to him.

He was aware of a strange weight on both of his arms, nothing unexpected considering he was drugged which meant captivity rather than execution, but the soft bed and clean-smelling bed covers under him were a surprise.

Since he had already been captured, he opened his eyes and took stock of the situation.

He was lying on an actual king-sized bed, dressed in his jeans and short sleeved white tee shirt. There were also two wide, black bands around his wrists, so light he didn't even feel them. They were made of something that looked like metal but didn't feel like it, and had slowly pulsing, blue stripes imbedded.

The room looked like a studio apartment. It had a small kitchenette visible from the bed, and another door. The flimsy plywood suggested bathroom rather than exit.  
To his left there was a short flight of stairs with a heavy set of metal doors at the top. There was also a camera, but only one, right over the door and in plain view.

He set his feet on the floor and rose up easily, his body well-rested and loose. He’d had no sense of time passing, couldn’t tell if he’d been unconscious for an hour or for three days. With his enhancements, his body wouldn’t easily show the passage of time.

His beard was uncomfortably long enough to also give no hints. He walked the circumference of the room, not really looking for exists, because anybody feeling sure enough to leave him unrestrained in a room would damn well be sure he wouldn’t easily find his way out. He glanced at the black bands on his wrists again but they didn’t react to his movements. 

It wasn’t a surprise that when he started for the door on the stairs, the bands suddenly changed color. The blue stripes glowed a bright eye-searing red, and suddenly he couldn't move his arms at all. It was as if he was secured with chains to some fixed point. If he tried pushing forwards towards the door, the glow intensified. Even with the full strength of his metal arm, he got nowhere. When he moved back into the room, away from the door, the bands changed color to blue and he was free to roam as he pleased.

The fridge in the kitchenette was fully stocked with ready meals and drinks, the microwave and oven worked, and behind the flimsy white door there really was a bathroom. It was fully stocked too.

There was an electric razor set out on the counter, which he took as a not-so-subtle suggestion.

He shaved and went back into the larger room. He sat on the bed, back up against to the high headboard, feet planted on the mattress, elbows resting loosely on the upraised knees, hands dangling.

He settled in to wait.

***

Steven Grant Rogers, Captain America, didn’t look like anything the Soldier remembered. For one thing, he was unshaven, his scruff reminiscent of something a russian lumberjack would wear rather than an american icon. He had dark bags under his eyes, and considering his level of enhancement it meant months of little sleep. His moves were jerky and nervous as he paced in front of the bed.

“Let me out,” the Soldier said, mostly to test the waters than believing Rogers would actually obey. The preparations were too extensive for this to be anything else than a meticulously planned action.

The big man stopped his pacing for a moment, eyes wide and strangely vulnerable as he looked at the Soldier. He didn’t look him in the eye though, turning away quickly to resume his pacing. He rubbed his hands over the messy blond hair.

“I can’t!” Rogers almost yelled, the muscles in his arms and back tightening in an unconsciously threatening manner. Briefly the Soldier wondered how the Avenger could work with somebody so unstable, so prone to expressing unconscious threat with the bulk of his body while being so unaware of it at the same time. The muscular line of his back, the powerful, ridiculous spread of his shoulder barely contained the power he had at his disposal, so palpable the Soldier could almost _taste_ it.

“Why?” The Soldier questioned again, still in his seated position, the bands around his wrists glowing a fierce red, confining him to the bed anyway. They had changed color a few second before the Captain entered the room. There was a similar band around Rogers’ wrist, his had a green stripe. It stood to reason that it was the control unit.

“You were gone! No matter what I did I couldn’t find you!” the man screamed at him, arms flung wide and jaw tensed. “You were _gone_! Can't you understand?” He went quiet suddenly, gulping heaving breaths. His eyes were wide, the whites showing around the blue, and his face was flushed and an attractive, splotchy red. “I thought I’d lost you again.” Rogers’ voice was barely a whisper, a thready and weak sound that the Soldier caught only because of his enhanced hearing. 

He stayed quiet after that for a long while, simply watching the agitated man. It took a while for Rogers to slow his pacing and sit down at the other end of the bed, a solid foot of space separating the Soldier’s bare feet from the man’s hip.

“I can’t lose you again,” the Captain said roughly, his wide, warm hand closing over the Soldier’s closest ankle “I’m sorry.”

***

‘I’m sorry’ were the same words the Captain mumbled into his skin as he pushed the Soldier down on the bed and divested him of his shirt, hands shaking and eyes wild, lips chapped and the tongue darting out to moisten them every few moments. The apology was muttered into his skin even as the Captain was pressing shuddering kisses to the Soldier’s exposed chest. 

He couldn’t move his arms, the bands keeping both hands firmly over his head, confirming his suspicions about Rogers controlling the strange devices.

Rogers ran his hands over the stretched muscles of the Soldiers biceps, licking at the sharp delineation in the skin. He wasn't afraid to touch the metal arm too, acting as if it was some kind of wonder. His flesh, human fingers slid over the metal unafraid and unflinching. Rogers fastened his mouth over the scarred mess that was his left shoulder where the metal plating of his arm connected with his chest. The Captain sucked at the scars and licked at them, his fingers tracing lazy, exploratory patterns over the tightly closed metal plates. The Soldier considered violence, considered twisting his hips and dumping the man stretched over him onto the floor, following with a kick to the head that would cave in a lesser man’s skull.

The arm, previously battle-ready, plates hardened into wide surfaces, armored enough to deflect even a rocket, separated suddenly and the sensors, tightened down to the barest bones of sensation since Japan, suddenly exploded with feeling.

The sensors opened up fully without any warning, the plates going small and loose, giving way under the Captain’s mouth and tongue almost like flesh. Rogers moaned as he dragged his open lips and wet tongue over the suddenly flexible metal surface, but it was the Soldier who went painfully hard and almost cross-eyed at the sensation, panting like a racehorse.

Rogers had his eyes closed, but he had to have heard the sudden change to the Soldier’s breathing. He dragged his lips from the arm, down the suddenly heaving chest to the flat nipples that had so fascinated him in Ukraine. 

Steve locked on them again, this time there was less hesitation, less fumbling than in the Ukraine. The Soldier was a truly captive audience this time, so Rogers just went to town on him, sloppily licking all over his pecs, sucking one at first, then the other nipple and biting them none too gently. It was shocking how sensitized they became. Every time the Captain bit down or used his teeth to pull at them, the Soldier could feel his cock jump in his pants and a line of searing fire traveling down his chest to his groin in random and unpredictable ways.

Rogers seemed completely lost in his task, eyes half closed, unfocused. He seemed almost meditative, working first the left side of the Soldier's chest and then the right, making lazy detours to randomly mouth and lick over the metal arm, sometimes stretching over him to just suck at his fingers, all but overloading the Soldier's mind, totally unconcerned that his fucking artery was in reach of the Soldier’s teeth.

The air between them was hot and moist, the room filled with the heavy breathing coming mostly from the Soldier and his body was betraying him again. He was arching under the Captain, his legs spreading to accommodate the huge bulk of the man above him as if was a martial art move trained into his very bones. His achingly hard cock was pressing into the hard thigh pressed over it and he was barely able to focus enough to keep breathing through the almost painful pleasure surging through him.

When the Captain shoved one of those freakishly huge paws of his into the Soldier’s jeans and pushed them down, the Soldier was ready to sob with relief. Just a few pulls of that huge, warm hand and he was coming all over his chest, teeth clenched so hard he tasted blood in his mouth, body jerking and spasming uncontrollably, thrashing under the other man.

“Bucky,” Steve tried to kiss him then, breath fast, face flushed and eyes liquid with lust.

The Soldier turned his head away, peeling his lips over his teeth in a clear threat.

With a choked sound, the Captain pushed himself up and off the Soldier, settling on the edge of the bed as he fumbled at his own pants with shaking hands. He pulled them open and wrapped one huge palm over his straining erection, the hand nearly covering it, only the angry purple head glimpsing atop his fingers. He jerked off hard, face twisted, shoulders hunched forwards, and making hollow, choked sounds.

He came like that, his huge frame curled in on itself, moans swallowed back and almost sobbing, face twisted up and red, come streaking his shaking fingers and splattering the floor.

It looked painful.

 

***

“I wondered,” the Soldier asked, watching as Steve washed his plate, the remnants of an actually delicious spaghetti bolognese still sitting on the countertop in in the small kitchenette. The Soldier was eating on the bed, the bands confining him there whenever the Captain came down to the basement. “How could you have followed me all over Europe, but not notice HYDRA was following you? How could you miss that?”

The Captain froze, his face blanking instantly, hands freezing in their motions for a fraction of a second.

It was interesting to watch the myriad of ways Rogers’ body betrayed him. In terms of outright specs, the Captain’s enhancements were better designed, streamlined and more powerful than his. The metal on his bones and the metal arm evened the odds in sheer physical power, but in terms of control Rogers was just a child, barely learning to walk. The Soldier knew his body down to the smallest of details. He knew how long he could function without food or water, how well he could perform complicated task at each point of the starvation process, knew how his body reacted to stimuli, from the outside and from the inside, knew what kind of trauma took what parts of him out and what could be simply worked through. He had had decades of experience, and if the history books were right, Rogers had had only four years to learn his body, and not through rigorous training but in battle. He was a scrapper through and through, and it _showed_.

The sudden stillness was a tell, as good as a spoken confession, but he already knew the truth.

“You didn’t,” the Soldier said softly. His arm whined quietly as the plates rearranged themselves into a battle-ready formation, the soft honeycomb pattern solidifying into wide, gleaming plates. “You didn’t miss them at all.”

Rogers licked his lips, averting his eyes from the Soldier.

“You weren’t accepting my help and I th -”

“You led them right to me!” the Soldier roared unexpectedly, the arm whining as it strained at the cuff, the plates almost a solid wall of metal now.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry!” the Captain all but cried, looking desperate now, soapy hands raised in a show of surrender. “I just wanted you to accept my help!”

The Soldier bared his teeth at the Captain. 

“I _trusted_ you!” He flung the plate with the rest of his spaghetti at the man with enough force to dent the wall. Rogers ducked and the plate missed him, but hadn’t managed to avoid the rest of the food. The tomato sauce looked like blood, splattered over his white shirt.

Rogers didn’t dare to touch him that night.

***

The Soldier never had nightmares, didn't really dream at all. What he considered sleep was merely a very deep state of meditation, not true sleep. He never entered the REM phase.

That wasn’t always the truth.

There was an awareness, a vision or a dream maybe, that he had from time to time. It was always the same.

He stalked through an abandoned underground base. There were miles and miles of corridors without any rooms. Just a labyrinth of corridors and staircases. There were few points of light, strange, cold blue gas lights that flickered and threw the Soldier’s vision off every time he encountered it.

The air smelled musty, the way a room that has been closed for decades would smell, and cold. Bitter, all consumingly cold. He was calm as he walked the endless corridors, hearing the echo of his own steps travel in ways it shouldn’t in such tight quarters; the Soldier was also aware of another presence.

There was something other than him scuttling through the place, matching his steps at times, following after him at others. 

Sometimes it stood in his way, guarding the staircases leading to the sub-basement levels.

He was never afraid in those dreams, but neither was he safe. Before, he never quite understood the difference between not being afraid and feeling safe, not until that small cabin in Ukrainian forest. 

He was dressed in full tactical gear, including the mask, carrying at least twenty pounds of gear strapped to his armor. Guns as familiar to him as breathing, heavy combat knives, extensions of his own limbs were strapped to him in easy reach. He felt powerful, dangerous, ready to destroy whatever stood in his path. The arm felt ready and light, geared for anything that might come at him. There was very few things that could outright win in a fight against him, especially in the dark, tight spaces.

He had no goal though, no path to blaze his way through, to target to acquire.

He simply existed, walking the endless corridors.

He’d always thought the base was a generic one, just an endless line of corridors twisting and turning, until one didn’t know which way was up. But, after his recent travels he knew that it was a very specific base, the cold and musty smell almost the exact same as he’d felt in the Yakutsk base.

The place of his birth.

That didn’t explain his hesitance, his outright avoidance of that other presence in the darkness. With the way his eyes were especially enhanced for night work, he could discern much of the detail, but never quite enough to know what he was looking at.

The other presence was dressed in rags, filthy, trailing pieces of cloth. It moved mostly on all fours, scuttling through the darkness like a particularly aggressive and overgrown rat, often making strange animal noises. It hissed or whimpered, often growled at him or other shadows, sometimes just crouched in a dark corner and wailed. It was always obscured by darkness and the pieces of cloth it swaddled itself in. Sometimes it moved with extreme caution, quiet like a breath of air, sometimes it scrabbled loudly on the concrete ground.

It was always angry though.

Vicious, endless anger and hatred, unmitigated rage that tended to hit the Soldier like a sledgehammer to the chest. Other times there was a hint of fear, hopeless, endless fear that churned the Soldier’s stomach.

There was something damaged about that presence, something twisted and wrong, that always, without fail, made the Soldier back off. 

The Soldier never shied away from a fight, even when he knew his body would suffer extreme damage or that death was more than just a possibility. All that ever mattered was reaching his appointed goal. 

The Soldier never challenged that other presence.

So whenever he slipped, whenever the meditation went too deep, he walked the cold, dark corridors, feeling nothing.

The Soldier never dreamed, but that wasn’t always the truth.

The Soldier never feared, but that too, wasn’t always the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fact the Soldier starts calling Steve “Steve” in his head is a deliberate move from me. There was a reason he never did that before.  
> The bands keeping the soldier confined are stolen AIM tech that Steve repurposed, they are controlled by conscious thought.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedications:  
> The rimmings are for NurseDarry  
> The fingering and come play are for Kristy because she listed what she thought would be hot. I tried to tick as many points as possible.
> 
>  
> 
> Soundtrack: Maroon5 - Animals, Apocalyptica- Not Strong Enough, Apocalyptica - I don’t care.

The Captain was gone for what the Soldier assumed was at least three days. The time spent waiting for something to happen, for the man to finally show up was unsettling enough that he grit his teeth against the first words that crowded his throat as he saw Rogers come gingerly down the stairs.

And he did walk very carefully, one foot in front of the other in small measured steps. There were already-fading bruises on his face and all along his left arm. The way he walked suggested heavy damage to his chest, especially his ribs. He probably shouldn’t be walking in this condition.

“Buck…”

The Soldier showed his teeth, fed up with the name, and the Captain flinched minutely.

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone for so long,” he said slowly, looking tired and worn, the bags under his eyes even deeper than ever before, his body obviously prioritizing healing whatever injuries he had over the bags under his eyes.

The bands glowed angry red, confining the Soldier to the bed as usual, so he only shrugged.

The Captain winced, at the pain or the Soldier, he didn’t know.

“In my defence I was unconscious for the last two days. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise, I swear!”

He watched Steve walk to the countertop of the small kitchenette and pause there, knuckles white as he obviously fought the pain.

“If you’re so worried about my welfare, let me go,” the Soldier suggested, mostly curious as to what the other man would do. He was obviously in pain but now that he was closer, and the Soldier could actually smell him over the artificially recycled air in the room; he could tell the man was also drugged to the gills.

It made him vaguely jealous, that the Captain had drugs that worked on him while the Soldier had only meditation and breathing techniques. 

Steve’s face twisted up, eyes turning wounded and liquid, but no closer to giving in.

“I can’t!” the Captain rasped. “I want to. I swear I want to.”

The Soldier listened to the other man’s heartbeat, the steady, truthful beat that indicated that he truly believed what he was saying. “It kills me when you’re away, when I don’t know where you are, if you’re safe,” the Captain said quietly. “You’re doing this to me. It’s so confusing, I know it’s wrong but… I’m not strong enough, okay? I just _can’t_!” The last words were a shout, angry and wrecked, as if it was the Captain sitting here, chained and restrained, captured.

There was moisture in the man’s bruised blue eyes and the Soldier realised he was on the verge of crying. 

He transferred his gaze to the wall above Steve’s shoulder, studying the slightly uneven way the kitchen tiles were placed and the tiny spots where the grouting was crumbling a little.

The Captain stayed still for a long time before shuffling into movement again.

“You need sleep,” he said to the Captain finally. There was no sense fighting verbally with the man, as unstable and downright unhinged as he was at the moment. Rogers had kept apologising from the very beginning, every time he touched the Soldier, every time he’d pulled his clothing away and put his mouth on the skin and metal that made up the Soldier’s body, he’d begged forgiveness every time he wrapped his lips around the Soldier’s cock and sucked him to orgasm, every time he’d lain over the Soldier’s immobilised body and rubbed himself to orgasm on his belly or thighs. The words were said like a prayer, as meaningless and rote as the man curled his fingers around the Soldier’s cock, exploring all the parts of him that had been forever untouched. He’d whispered apologies while using the softest of caresses to break the Soldier apart each night, but he was never willing to open the door.

Even hurt, drugged, and emotional, the man’s planning was faultless. 

The bands kept the Soldier confined to the bed, their power unbreakable, but they didn’t make him _docile_ by any means.

The Captain lay down on the carpeted floor, stretching out with a relieved sigh and closing his eyes.

He was just a few inches away from the Soldier’s reach.

The Soldier shifted on the bed, lowered himself into a supine position and reached over his head to thumb the lights off. The room became totally dark, not a single source of light anywhere. In that darkness the presence of the man lying on the floor beside the bed became all the more powerful. The Soldier could smell him, hear his heartbeat, the minute shifts of him getting comfortable.

They lay quietly in the darkness for a very long time, drifting but not asleep.

“This… It’s not going to end well, you know that, right?” the Soldier asked finally, not truly comprehending the goal of the other man’s actions. It couldn’t have been the sex, because that had happened before his capture, and there was no reason to think the Soldier wouldn't have allowed it to happen again.

The Captain breathed in, held that breath for a long time before letting it 

“I know.”

The Soldier ran his tongue over his teeth, counting them slowly, first the upper ones, then the bottom ones.

“Why do it then?”

The Captain did another of those long inhale/exhale things that couldn’t have been comfortable with as many broken ribs as the man seemed to have.

“Because it’s better than what I have in my head.”

 

***

He fought the next time the Captain touched him. He kicked, his naked heel connecting with the Captain’s still-tender torso and cracking something audibly. Steve didn’t show anger; his face twisted in pain for a moment before he managed to catch the Soldier’s ankles in his hands and lift him up, his muscles bulging, straining to hold the Soldier’s entire weight so that only his shoulders were resting on the bed, arms secured over his head and no leverage whatsoever.

He fought still, managing to free one leg and aim a kick to the Captain’s head. His kicks were almost as powerful as his metal arm. He remembered studying the destructive power of kicks in different martial arts, and Capoeira beat every other martial art. He used his whole body, gravity, and the pivot point of the man holding his other leg, but wasn’t surprised that Rogers evaded, even if it cost him a painful wrench to the shoulder. The kicks were telegraphed, just a way to express the Soldier’s unhappiness with Steve rather than actual fighting, and the man seemed to get it.

It was strange how they never had trouble communicating when they used their bodies. It was when they used their minds that things went to shit.

The Captain flipped him on his stomach, the restraints following his movement seamlessly, which only confirmed the Soldier’s suspicions that they were thought controlled.

Face down on the bed, arms still secured high above him, Rogers stretched over him, using his bulk to restrain the vicious kicking, knees pressed between the Soldier's legs, forcing them to spread wide, taking away all leverage, but not hurting the Soldier in any significant way. His HYDRA handlers always had had to damn near incapacitate him to restrain him against his will, yet this man managed it fairly easily. The Captain’s face was pressed to the nape of the Soldier’s neck. He could feel the other man pant, they were both panting, the Soldier into the rucked-up bedding and the Captain into his neck, hot, moist puffs of breath that sent intermediate shivers down the Soldier’s back.

His body rebelled against him, going soft and pliant, cock hardening almost as soon as he felt the weight of the other man pressing him down, felt the heat their scuffle had generated breaching the barrier of their clothes and scorching his skin.

“Stay still,” the Captain rasped into his ear, so close he could feel the movement of the man’s lips near his lobe, not quite touching yet. 

He froze, obedient, even if his heart was thundering in his chest. He didn’t try to struggle as the other man raised himself up slightly, fitting one arm between the Soldier’s head and the headboard and shifted his weight to that arm, making the impressive bicep bulge. He grabbed the back of the tee-shirt the Soldier was wearing and simply tore it away, exposing the whole of the Soldiers back in one violent movement. The sound of torn cotton sent a rash of goosebumps over his back. Before the Soldier had the time to even fully register the change, Rogers lowered himself again, bracing his now free hand on the Soldier’s other side, bracketing him in and pressing his open mouth to the middle of the Soldier’s back. It wasn’t gentle or timid in any way, just his wide open mouth pressed to the Soldier’s wildly sensitive skin, and tongue that dragged a line of wet heat up his spine, making him gasp and arch under the man. Rogers sifted his knees wider, forcing the Soldier’s thighs apart even more obscenely, and ground his own erection against the conveniently exposed ass.

Steve pressed his lips to the ridge of scar tissue at the juncture of the metal arm and flesh and sucked there, messily, loudly as he fucked against the man below him, no shame or restraint at all. He moaned around the scarred flesh in his mouth, as if it was the best thing he’d ever tasted, rubbing his cock over the man beneath him. The Soldier had to bite down on the sheets to stop himself from making noises too.

Rogers moved up again, mouth fitted firmly to the metal of the artificial limb, the plates of his stupid arm shifting shape rapidly under the wet caress of lips. This time the Soldier couldn’t stop himself from groaning helplessly as the sensors in his whole arm went haywire, opening fully from battle-ready tightness, almost shorting out his brain with the sensation of _wet, soft, heat_.

Steve was still sucking at the arch of his metal shoulder as he reached towards the Soldier’s soft sweatpants and hooked his hand under the cloth, ripping it and the underwear off in one violent movement, leaving stinging welts where the cloth abraded naked skin.

The Soldier shuddered again, arching into the man over him almost without conscious thought, grinding his now naked ass against the man, and feeling him fumbling one handed at his own clothes. Just moments later he heard a sharp gasp from the man and felt his cock, already wet and thick, sliding between the cheeks of his ass. His obscenely spread thighs gave him no leverage at all, his arms secured firmly over his head, and Rogers was stretched all over his back, moving his lips from the arm to the nape of his neck and biting _down_.

The Soldier whined through the sheets between his clenched teeth, grinding his flushed face into the mattress as Steve ground against him, cock sliding wetly between his cheeks, balls slapping his own, and the sheer heat of the man making his heart rabbit halfway out of his chest. 

It didn’t take long for Rogers to come, tightening his teeth over the Soldier’s neck until he broke the skin with a helpless groan, his hot seed splashing over the Soldier’s back, his ass, even his vulnerable hole. 

The Soldier kept shuddering under the man, his body strung out, cock hard and dripping precome on the sheets beneath him, but the stimulation not nearly enough to push him over the edge. He spit out the saliva-wet sheet and gasped for air. Rogers didn’t stay still for long. He slid down the bed, fitting himself between the Soldier's legs, using his shoulders to keep him open, and pressed one of his palms to the come-splattered skin, rubbing it in, smearing it all over his lower back before grabbing hold of the cheeks of his ass and fitting his whole mouth over the Soldier’s hole, forcing his tongue in without any explanation or warning.

The Soldier’s whole body jackknifed in reaction, broken curses in Russian escaping him as Steve licked, sucked, and fucked him with his tongue like there was no tomorrow. He seemed dissatisfied somehow with how far he could force his tongue into the Soldier, so he pushed two of his fingers in along with his tongue, the digits sliding in easily, aided by sweat, come, and saliva. It didn’t hurt, the stretch strange and maybe a bit uncomfortable, but with the amount of sensation battering his body, The Soldier didn’t care. He pressed his face harder against the bed, trying to muffle the desperate sounds he was making before his body just gave up the fight and he came, his whole being tensing and releasing rhythmically as he made a mess of himself and the sheets underneath him.

***

Once Steve realised he could put things inside the Soldier, the was no stopping him. He would spend hours just pinning the Soldier's hips to the bed and licking at his hole, making him come over and over again until the Soldier was closest to begging than he had been in years. Other times the Captain would just stretch himself over the Soldier, mouth latching to his neck, or his shoulder and then push his fingers inside him, fingering him for ages, tracing lazy circles over his prostrate from the inside. He’d bring the Soldier to orgasm from that, and never stop, just continue to press and touch until quite frankly, the Soldier was out of his mind, wrecked and panting and so wrung out he thought he would never get another erection in his life. Steve would maul his neck some more and jerk himself off against some part of the Soldier’s body, seemingly gaining an excessive amount of pleasure from smearing the spilled come over the Soldier’s skin.

The Soldier would have bruises and hickeys on his neck for hours later, looking as if something had mauled him, as the Captain sat at the other end of the bed, a sketchbook in his lap and a pencil in his hand. 

“You hate me calling you Bucky,” Steve said suddenly, eyes not on the paper in front of him but on the Soldier. 

He always watched.

The Soldier sighed, pulling himself up to sit against the headboard mirroring the Captain’s position. He was naked, but unbothered by it. Rogers was only wearing his underwear anyway.

“Of course I hate it.”

There was a sound of pencil on paper for a few minutes before the Captain mustered the courage to talk again.

“Why?”

The Soldier pursed his lips, stretched his toes and curled them, twice, just to feel the stretch in his feet.

“Because you never asked,” he answered finally.

Rogers lowered his hands, letting the pencil drop to the bed.

“What? You don't remember that that’s what -”

“You never asked what my name was,” the Soldier interrupted sharply, turning his eyes away from the other man, looking into the middle distance. “You just decided what to call me. Just like _they_ did.”

The notebook hit the floor. The Captain looked as pasty white as if the Soldier had shot him full of bullets, eyes so wide it looked painful. For a moment, the Soldier had the strangest idea that Steve was going to have an asthma attack. Where had that come from?

“I… I’m sorry,” Roger’s stuttered. “Oh God, I am so sorry! I never… I won’t call you anything you don't want any more, I swear. Oh Jesus, I’m _so_ sorry.”

The words were shaky, half-choked off and for all their stuttering, the sentiment seemed honest enough. That was the problem with Rogers, he always believed what he promised.

The longer the Soldier kept quiet, the more frantic the Captain became, alternating between tearing at his hair to making aborted moves, never quite daring to touch the Soldier.

Eventually the Soldier stretched his leg, placing the naked foot in reach of the Captain. The man looked at the his foot, a little bony with nails a tad too long as if it was the most wondrous thing in the universe.

Hesitantly he reached to place his palm over it, calming almost instantly. It was difficult, looking at the man’s expression, it pulled at something in the Soldier he didn’t like.

“What,” Steve licked his lips and swallowed twice, his throat clicking both times. “What is your name?”

The Soldier looked at the other man for a long time.

“James,” he said finally. “You can call me James.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my headcanon Winter Soldier is above all brutally effective. Please remember it when reading this chapter.

Steve was at the foot of the bed, his hands on James's ankles, pushing up his calves, tickling the little hairs there. It had been six weeks already and he’d stopped pretending there wasn’t going to be sex whenever Rogers came down to the basement.

This time was different. James was not only already naked, but pliant than he’d ever been. He could see the bewilderment, the speculation in the other man’s eyes even as he fell for the bait. Steve’s eyes widened when James allowed his knees to fall open at the first touch, at the way he let himself fall back flat on the bed without prompting.

The time of night and James's cooperation lulled Steve into a false sense of safety, which was admittedly a stupid mistake, but one everybody would eventually make.

Steve stretched over him on his knees, trying to reach James's invitingly bared throat. He waited till the Captain was in the most precarious position, when his weight was shifted almost completely off his knees and onto the arm supporting him on the bed. James twisted his hips hard, unbalancing Steve, and kicked his legs up in a semicircle, freeing them from under Steve’s body. The scissoring motion brought his legs back around, the right clamping over the other man’s chest, pinning his arm, while the other clamped over the man’s face.

The Soldier arched, his body a long, muscular line of power, hips completely off the bed as he shifted his balance point to his shoulder and made his hips a leverage device. With a grunt, he shifted the body in his hold further onto its back, forcing Steve to lie on James's feet, making his own bulk the force that made the hold unbreakable. His left leg was positioned in such a way that his calf was just behind Steve's skull, the natural arch of the Captain’s head and the hollow of his neck creating a good hold of his tensed calf. His vulnerable knee was well beyond the reach of the Captain’s legs, and the thick, meaty part of James’s thigh was pressed tightly over Steve’s mouth and nose, the naked skin ensuring sure there would be no air escaping through that hold. The way he forced Rogers body to lie on his only free arm and then shifted him back meant Rogers could neither free his arm nor escape by thrashing around; James made sure to take all of his leverage away.

Steve tried to kick out, but James had used one of his legs to lock around the Captain’s chest. This made it easier to force more distance between them and the kicks never reached him. Steve tried to break the hold, his muscles straining, but it was useless. The thigh contained large and strong muscles, although they were much more powerful in women, which is why Widows were trained to rely heavily on their legs in combat situation. It reduced the need of training their upper body, which allowed them to pass for civilians more easily, while providing incredible destructive power to their fighting style.

Now, when it was the strength of his muscles against those of Captain America, James wasn’t going to risk failure. With a grunt he arched even more, his whole body one long bow with only his shoulders touching the bed, and held on. Sweat was beading his skin, the exertion of keeping such heightened tension making him pant.

Steve fought.

He fought hard and viciously. When the kicks didn’t work, he turned to biting, breaking skin and muscle, but James didn’t let go.

It hurt and it took ages to subdue him, so long that a regular human would be dead thrice over just in the time it took for the man in his grip to become clumsy, slower, before finally stilling.

James didn’t let go, just tightened his grip, ignoring the way his muscles screamed and heart felt like it wanted thrash itself right out of his chest. He held on grimly, with jaw tensed and chest heaving sharply until he felt the bands on his wrists disengage.

His assumptions were right. The bands were consciously controlled while Steve was in the room. The moment his heart stopped, the devices let go.

Shivering and panting James rolled off the man, knelt up and placed his palm over the still man’s sternum. With their level of enhancements there didn’t need to be much done in order to restart the heart. Five quick pumps and one careful, assisted breath and Steve’s heart was beating again. Slow and stuttering for now, but already working. Whatever the damage, the serum would heal it soon enough.

This wasn’t like in the movies when the paramedics brought back the heartbeat and the hero immediately regained consciousness. Steve was ash grey, lips blue as he lay unconscious on the bed, horribly still. He would remain that way for a while yet. James knew that from experience.

He dressed quickly and then returned to Steve’s unconscious body to search it for something that would open the door. There was nothing in the clothes the man was wearing, but there was something hidden in the sole of his boot. Using his metal fingers, James pried the heel away, extracting a tiny chip from it. 

He let the boot thud to the floor with a heavy thunk and looked at the unconscious man again. There was an odd, shivery feeling in his chest. Even as me made his escape, he knew he didn’t hadn’t completely minded his captivity. He’d been a captive before, and this had been nothing like that, almost enjoyable by comparison. 

At first, when he’d read things about Captain America, James had been convinced there couldn’t ever be anything in that man the the Soldier could relate to, connect to, nothing but the echo of knowledge, memory. Now, seeing him as broken as any other human, his image of the man changed substantially. 

James was aware enough to understand what Steve had wanted from him, he could also see all the places where Steve was wrong. James was not Bucky, Bucky had died a quick and terrifying death in the service of his country . Bucky had been dead for over seventy years. He _didn’t exist_ any more. 

Sometimes, looking at Steve’s desperation, James wondered if the man had even understood the difference in age between them.

With a last look back to check that Rogers wouldn’t choke while he was unconscious, James turned around and approached the heavily reinforced door. It clicked open under his hand and slid open soundlessly. 

Just like there were things wrong with Steve, so were they wrong with James.

***

In the end, the choice was easy. Whatever else he was, he’d been born a hunter, he’d been born to track his prey in the darkness and bring it down. 

James had a choice to make. He could stay the way he was, cold and removed, lacking understanding of certain situations, his emotions sparse and muted, he knew that. He felt as though he had lacked some crucial elements of most of his interactions with Steve, but that hadn’t really bothered him. Nor did it bother him now. He had reached a certain balance, almost a peace with himself, with the way he could look at a person and see the ways in which to kill them before their face even registered, with the anchorless knowledge filling his mind, the terrible things he knew he’d done.

But there was another side to this existence. There was an anger that lived in his chest. A violent, almost independent thing that sometimes took over. Every time Steve looked at him, he looked for somebody else, that other thing within him. But, Steve would not like the broken thing he thought he wanted. It infuriated the James, that Steve never looked at _him_.

He chose knives, because when fighting in dark tight spaces, guns were not as effective, and there was an intimacy to knives that he felt was suitable here.

In the end, there hadn’t been much of a fight. For all the times he’d avoided that presence, the unparalleled rage, it stood no chance against him.

It was human shaped, had deformed arms and legs which it lashed out like a cornered animal at him. It hissed, scratched, clawed at him and howled its rage.

In no time, James had it on its back, skinny arms with twisted fingers and oddly crooked legs pinned. He pushed the rags that covered the thing’s head away and was met with his own face, but...not his own.

It was the face from the pictures in the history books, the face from the Smithsonian exhibit. It was battered and worn, but still recognizable as Bucky Barnes. There were bags under its eyes that looked like they’d taken years to acquire. The lips were scabbed over in multiple places, and the tongue he saw when the creature screamed its rage was black and swollen. The sclera of his eyes was yellow and shot through with red in many places, and there was no sanity in its gaze at all.

James didn’t hesitate.

He drove his biggest combat knife into the thing’s chest hard enough to shatter its ribcage. 

As the thing...the man...in front of him died, the Soldier could feel a change inside him, the endless, insane anger morphing, changing, until it was something James could understand, could call his own. 

The cold dark corridors he’d spent so many nights walking aimlessly through didn’t become warmer or any less dark, but the sense of them had changed. They were no longer blank and musty like an old forgotten tomb. They were his now, _his_ place, _his_ space. There was a different kind of quality to the air, still viciously cold, but sharp and fresh, like the tundra at night at the peak of a Siberian winter.

As he watched the body in front of him slowly turning into nothing but shadows, James could feel a tremor shudder through the whole base. His sensitive ears picked out the sound of walls collapsing, of staircases disintegrating. The lower levels being guarded by the presence he’d just killed were gone now.

***

As it turned out, getting away from the basement didn’t help James in getting away from Steven Rogers.

James’s body, which had been a reliable, highly-trained tool for so many years has changed. It became excited whenever he so much as thought of Rogers, his cock plumping up hopefully and heartbeat increasing for no reason. His nights were suddenly filled by perfectly detailed memories of how it felt to have the other man stretched over him, pressing his fingers into James so relentlessly, making him come from the combination of pleasure and Steve’s sheer enjoyment at being allowed to _touch_ him.

James only lasted three weeks before coming back to New York and started tracking Rogers. James was careful not to be caught by the city’s surveillance system, for once interested in watching Rogers while the man was unaware of the scrutiny.

It wasn’t hard to do.

Correction, it was disgustingly easy, actually; the other man had lost all sense of survival along with his basic sanity.

James walked the rooftops above Steve as the man went to buy his groceries. He spent his days camped out on the highest of them, rifle scope in his hands, watching as Steve led his life. Even in his admittedly non-standard opinion, things appeared strange.

Steve went out to run, to the store, to Avengers Tower for what James assumed was work, but something still seemed wrong about the man. There were faint shadows under his eyes that darkened the longer James watched him. Every time one of the other Avengers came to visit, Steve smiled but kept them at a distance. James didn’t need to hear the words, he could read body language well enough.

The other thing James noticed during the few weeks he’d watched Steve was that the man never, ever let anybody into his apartment for longer than it took to grab his shoes and usher the guest out. Through the windows, James could clearly see the open kitchen, the small living room, the door to the bathroom, and the shadow of the bedroom door. The bedroom was the only room that had blackout blinds and they were _always_ closed. In four weeks, James hadn't seen the blinds open even once.

He watched as Rogers steadily closed himself off from his friends, how he pretended not to be home when the Black man who tagged along with Steve knocked on his door, how his twice-weekly lunches with Black Widow became once a week, eventually tapering off to once every few weeks.

He watched as Rogers lost more weight, as the only part of his routine that remained was the everyday runs, which became so isolating, so intense that people tended to get out of his way rather than approach him as they had before.

Steve spent almost all of his time at home now, but not just lounging around like so many of his neighbors who James watched as a control sample for proper civilian behavior. He didn’t lie around on the couch, didn’t draw, didn’t spend his time watching movies, or even read books.

He spent all his time in the bedroom, the one with the blinds closed, the one James couldn’t see inside of.

James knew Steve was keeping secrets, could see it in the way Steve acted, the way he shied away from human interaction.

He knew, because he was very good with secrets too.

Especially with digging them out of people.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First: remember I am serious with my warnings.   
> Second: Empathy is not something you are simply born with. It needs to be exercised. Bucky was so long in an environment where not only did empathy not exist, it was actively beaten out of him. All he knew as the Soldier was efficiency. Yes he chokes Steve untill the man dies, but he doesn’t see it as something that terrible because a) he was going to resuscitate him anyway, and b) being brought to a controlled death is something commonplace for him, which is extremely sad. I preferred to focus on the way the torture shaped his character rather than the gory details of said torture.
> 
> Music: Paint It Black (Hidden Citizen Remix)

Stalker 8

Breaking in was ridiculously easy. All he needed was to wait for Steve to leave his apartment at exactly the same time as he did every morning, put on coveralls that vaguely resembled the ones used by the company that provided building management services, pull a baseball cap low on his face, a toolbag, and he was let right in.

The lock on the door was a joke, it took him less than twenty seconds to pick it. James let himself in making sure to close the door behind him. He had at least an hour before Rogers would be back from his run, so he didn’t need to hurry, but it wouldn’t be good for an overly curious neighbour to come and investigate. He was ware that his first, second, and third reaction would always lean towards the permanent kind of solution. It took effort, conscious planning not to break the civilians he met. It was easier when he was simply living in a safe house somewhere. It was a completely different matter when he was on an op.

As ridiculously simple as breaking into Steve’s flat was, it was still a mission and it kept tripping all those little protocols…surveillance, camouflage, leaving no witness, almost as important as actually achieving the mission objective.

As soon as James stepped into the flat, he had to stop for a moment. For a normal human it would just be a tidy, if quite small flat. He was almost bowled over by the intensity of Steve’s scent permeating the very air. 

The bedroom had an even flimsier lock than the apartment door. It was painful how he only had to halfheartedly wiggle the pic before the lock all but sprang open.

He pushed the door open automatically pocketing the pick. Good picks were hard to find.

It was pitch black inside so he slapped the light switch on.

The light revealed just what Steve was hiding.

James took in the room with all four walls covered in paper. One wall was covered in maps of Europe and red string connecting pins all over the place. There were newspaper articles pinned beside the maps with fragments of text marked in different colors. He knew he should probably spend some time analysing the maps because this was how Steve had managed to track him down so efficiently. 

The other three walls pulled James’s attention past the maps and the bed made up with military precision.

On all the remaining flat spaces there was…him, basically. There were pictures. Hundreds of them. They ranged from poor quality stills from CCTV cameras, through half-done sketches, to high quality closeups of his time in the basement. It wasn’t even the intimacy of the pictures where he was naked and in various stages of arousal that caught his attention. 

It was the _progression_ of them. 

On the furthest end were the pictures of him from the history books, hair short, swept back, smiling a wide open grin that transformed his face into something unrecognizable. There was an expression in his eyes he’d never seen in a reflection. 

As a shocking counterpoint there were pictures from what obviously had to have been taken from his HYDRA files. In those his face was different from the old pictures from the ‘40s, but they were different again from he could see in the mirror now. Those were the pictures of somebody broken completely, somebody so shattered he couldn’t even function independently. His eyes weren’t blank, they were submissive, whatever will to fight that had been present before had been very thoroughly crushed. The man in those pictures looked barely human, closer to a tortured animal than anything else.

James much prefered the next set of photos, the ones from his operative years, as much as they were disturbing too.

The face in the pictures no longer looked like an being tortured beyond its limits. It was flat though. Not even cold. Just empty, and at moments heartbreakingly confused. Steve must have got hold of videotapes to have cut out the pictures so clearly, to show the sheer misery of the existence portrayed there. 

He walked back, put some distance between himself and the wall, to take in more of the pictures at one glance, to get more breathing space.

The man in the photos was little more than an automaton, his eyes barely even reflecting any light. There was a bleakness to his expression that overshadowed everything else.

The next obvious set were from Washington and helicarriers crash, but what caught James’s attention was the number of sketches.

The drawings interested him because they were _wrong_. From what he’d seen in the sitting room, Rogers was very talented, and the few images of other Avengers that were framed and hanging on the walls, looked not only accurate but _alive_ , catching the personalities and, not just the appearance of his subjects. 

The pictures of him, in full tactical gear but with his face unmasked, were somehow skewered. James looked at them and knew they were wrong, but he couldn’t his finger on how exactly.

He looked around the room and found the laptop in sleep mode. He swiped the touchpad with his flesh fingers and had to stop himself from snorting as the device woke up completely unlocked.

There was an mp3 player in the corner blinking the pause symbol at him. Curious, he pressed the pad, wanting to understand just what was it that he was _missing_ here. 

The melody was slow and deep, heavy rock influence. The singers voice was almost painful, deep and strangely compelling as it sang with a kind of belligerent pain that struck some kind of chord inside him.

James listened to the lyrics, the melody, slow and alluring and looked back at the sketches that so disturbed him. 

It was obvious now, what seemed so wrong to him.

It wasn’t him. It wasn’t James, it wasn't even the Winter Soldier in those pictures. It was Bucky Barnes, with his warm eyes and a charming, rakish tilt to his head dressed in the Soldier’s combat gear. There was so much personality in that figure, so much life it was obvious that it could have never been James.

It hurt to realise that the first time, that moment that had changed James’s life so completely, Steve had never even seen him, just superimposed a ghost of his old friend over him.

The singer crooned in the background about anger and pain, about the darkness pain brought.

Still strangely hurt, James turned his eyes to the biggest swath of photos, easily covering the whole of the largest of the walls, some even hung from string that was running under the ceiling, parallel to the wall.

They were from the time he’d spent in the basement. The angle was always the same so there really must have only been the one camera above the door. But the device was obviously not only wide-angle but also very high quality. The glossy pictures were blown up until all the little details of his body were visible for all to see. It was shockingly intimate, the way Steve had placed the pictures. There were some wide shots of him first; sitting on the bed waiting for Steve that first day. There were dozens of enlarged stills focusing on his hands, his fingers, his naked feet.

His face.

The man had spent an indecent amount of time catching every possible angle of James’s eyes and printing them out. It was somehow worse than being naked, knowing that someone looked with that kind of scrutiny, at every tiny detail of his body. 

Further along there were pictures of them having sex, unashamed, naked pictures of the Captain’s muscled body stretched over James. But most were cropped pictures of James. For some reason, Steve had chosen to cut him out of many of the stills. James had expected there to be more pictures of him naked, considering the level of Rogers’ sexual interest in him, but there were surprisingly few. Mostly the man seemed focused on James's face, his expressions, his eyes. Steve’s attention to James was almost palpable. Looking at his own face, caught in the throes of pleasure was surprisingly hard to observe, preserved on this wall. It made James’s heart beat harder than it needed to, it made him lick his suddenly dry lips. 

There was a sketch of him in that basement, but only one. It was his face, the same face he’d seen in the mirror that morning. He looked thoughtful, a little confused and distant at the same time.

It looked real. It felt real.

James shifted his stance, planting his feet as if readying for battle, and looked at the wall of endless pictures, of an intimate deconstruction of his own reactions. Every emotion was cropped and enlarged into a high definition photo to be studied at leisure. And it wasn’t even just the pleasure, the sex itself. They were also the times when James was alone and thinking, when he’d looked at Rogers as the man came or went.

He was stunned by how many emotions _were_ actually caught. It surprised him that Steve looked closely enough to see them for what they were.

James couldn’t even define half of them, only the strongest like anger, surprise, pleasure. But there was a whole plethora of softer, different expressions that bothered him.

The other thing that troubled him was how many pictures there were of the moment of his escape. He’d had no idea the image he’d cut when he’d strangled Steve with his thighs, the arch his body made. 

The expression of pain on his own face.

***

Rogers didn’t notice anybody had broken into his flat because he was an idiot and hadn’t placed any real security measures around the place. He pushed the bedroom door open, halfway out of his hoodie, white tee clinging to his sweaty chest.

He froze when he noticed James standing with his feet planted in the middle of the room, the coveralls and cap long discarded to reveal ordinary jeans and red long-sleeved henley.

Steve’s face contorted into something strange, painful, before clearing, as if he tried to _dismiss_ the possibility that James was actually there.

The Captain looked around again, his brows furrowing at the pile of discarded clothes on the floor, the ugly green of the coveralls very obviously out of place in the room. His eyes tracked to the lit-up screen of the laptop and the playlist that was now looped on the first song James had heard and playing it very quietly.

And yeah, James could understand that urge, that need to remove himself before he let something truly ugly out into the world, onto the unsuspecting populace. Understood how often just watching those unaware, those oblivious could make everything red, the rage rising up like bile, bitter and awful.

Steve wasn’t unsuspecting though. James had shot him, beat him, broken his bones, and finally even killed him. Although none of those had left permanent damage, Steve was at least aware of the danger James posed.

“I think I like this song.”

Steve’s eyes went wide, his head jerking so hard in James’s direction he could swear he heard his neck crack.

“Bucky!”

James scowled immediately. He _hated_ being called that, but before he managed to convey that yet again, Steve had gone even whiter, and stuttered an apology.

“I’m sorry! I didn't mean to James, please…” 

The Captain stumbled towards James, arms outstretched as if wanting to touch him before he came to a sudden stop, as if hitting a wall. He balled his hands and hid them behind his back, like a scolded child.

He looked torn, happy and in pain at the same time, and as much at a loss of what to do as James felt.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This thing will have at least two more chapters. Or three. God I hope it's only three more. 
> 
> Discussion of past Dub-con ahead.

“Sit down,” James ordered as he saw Steve literally sway on his feet, getting paler by the second as he took in the sight of James in front of him and realised just _where_ they were.

Eventually he stumbled sideways the few steps to his bed and sat down heavily, mouth opening and closing.

James cast a look at one of the more explicit photos, ones that caught James’s body arched up, mid-orgasm, with his face twisted in pleasure and his cock still spurting come all over his belly, with Steve sitting between his legs, fingering him mercilessly.

Yeah, he figured there wasn’t really anything to say that would explain _that_.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said not even looking at him, but staring fixedly at the floor. Or maybe at James’s boots, it was hard to say. “For everything. I swear I’m sorry, so sorry! I…please, I swear I won’t hurt you again, just…please...”

The litany of apologies seemed to be never ending but still sounded sincere. Rogers’ whole body screamed defeat, submission. His shoulders were hunched, head lowered, eyes fixed on the floor.

Gone was the confident man that had chased him all over Europe, gone was the manic, competent single-minded man who’d kept James in a damned basement for weeks. In their place was…this, this broken defeated shell of a man.

James had the distinct and unpleasant feeling that it was his fault somehow.

“God, you are stubborn,” he muttered looking at the Captain as he sat on the bed, arms curled in, dark shadows under his eyes, and sharp cheekbones speaking volumes about the weight he’d lost.

Steve only hung his head lower, wringing his hands together before the tone of James’s voice registered.

His head snapped back up, eyes wide and wet.

“Bucky?”

James stared the stubborn man down, feeling so damn tired.

“It would have been so much easier if you’d just let me go,” he said quietly. “But you were never one to let anything go, so I guess I should have known you would be a pain about this.”

“Buck?” Steve whispered, his voice breaking oddly in the middle. “Do you remember me?”

James could feel the corners of his lips pulling up briefly.

“No,” James said firmly, keeping the eye contact. “The man you knew is dead,” he stated firmly, making sure there was no misunderstanding. “I know he’s dead because I made _sure_ of it.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “But I remember you.”

It felt important, huge, admitting this. For all the time he and Steve had circled each other, James never once admitted even to himself, that he’d remembered something.

“Nothing specific; I can’t tell you about our shared past,” James said firmly, hoping the man understood. “But I remember the shape of you.”

“Oh god.” The words shuddered out of Steve, his face twisting in a rictus James couldn't even decipher. “I’m so sorry. Oh my god, I am so sorry.”

Steve launched himself at him suddenly, but his legs gave out under him and he landed ungracefully on the floor, his knees hitting the hardwood harshly. His hands grabbed for James’s hips and jerked him closer.

“God, Bu…James.” There was so much anguish in Steve’s voice it sent a sharp, almost panic-like response through his body. James’s arm whirred loudly as it recalibrated for close combat, plates tightening and forming into larger, harder surfaces, the whole thing becoming an impenetrable defence in response to that much pain in Steve’s voice.

For some unknown reason, the anguish, so clear in the man’s voice, registered as a precursor to _fight_ in James’s body, making his heartbeat increase, adrenaline pump into his bloodstream, and his muscles tense in anticipation.

The Captain’s hands tightened painfully on James’s hips, and he pressed his face into the rough cloth of his combat pants as he shuddered through great big sobs.

“What are you sorry for?” James asked, genuinely curious.

Steve’s big body was folded up at James’s feet, awkwardly trying to fit itself into a smaller space than physically possible; one of his huge paws curled around James’s hip, fingers digging in while the other slid down to cup gently around his knee.

There was something very vulnerable in letting Steve touch him like this. The powerful hand closed around a joint as important as a knee was tactically suicide. Steve could crush that joint in a moment, could use his hand locked around James’s hip to pull him off balance. It was sheer idiocy to allow this to continue.

“For taking away your freedom. For..,” Steve choked, the face flushed from crying now paled again rapidly. “For raping…,” he choked and made an aborted gagging sound before swallowing loudly, twice and continuing. “For hurting you. For taking you for granted. For doing to you what so many people did to me, by seeing only what they wanted to see, not what I really was. For looking but not _seeing_.”

Rogers knelt down, letting go of James. His fingers lingered before his hands dropped, falling limply at his sides. He seemed so defeated, James couldn’t look at him.

“That’s a change. ...Why?”

James sank down into a crouch, both feet still planted flat on the floor, calves stretching as he let his whole body balance in the squat. He didn't know where he picked up the habit. Japan perhaps? It was strangely restful, especially considering it left him in a position from which he could spring into action at a moment’s notice.

Steve looked terrible. It wasn't the anguish or pain that James was already used to seeing on his face. It was the calmness of surrender, and James _hated_ it.

“When you were killing me,” Steve said without meeting James’s eyes. “I realised that I didn’t know if you were really going to kill me this time.” Steve took a deep breath and James tracked the way his expanding ribcage stretched his shirt, muscles nearly visible through the thin material. His eyes and nose were red, evidence of his earlier crying, and he kept sniffing every few moments. “And not because of some HYDRA programming or whatever, but because of my own actions.”

James shifted, raising his flesh hand to his hair before arresting the movement halfway and dropping his hand to rest on his knee. The metal hand caught the light and reflected it, drawing his attention to the tightly closed plates, the obvious battle-readiness of it.

“I wasn’t killing you,” he protested, suddenly eager for Steve to understand the difference. “I just needed to stop your heart for a moment.” Considering the level of their enhancements and the fact that James provided resuscitation almost immediately, there was no need for the harsh description. People James killed usually _stayed_ dead, and he definitely had never wanted to kill Steve.

Steve smiled then, lips turning up in a wry smile and looked James in the eye, probably for the first time since he entered his flat.

“I didn’t know that,” Steve said gently. “I only knew I couldn’t breathe, that I was dying, and you weren’t letting go.”

James thought about it. He supposed that for those unaccustomed, the sensation of the heart stopping, the body fighting for the last breath that wasn’t coming would be terrifying.

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” James insisted, uncomfortable with the thought that Steve had thought James considered him a target.

“I know,” Steve said easily, no fear, no recrimination in his voice. “I watched the tapes later. You resuscitated me. You made sure I was left in a safe position so that I wouldn’t choke while unconscious.”

Steve reached out his hand, almost touching James leg before stopping the movement and letting the hand drop. Again.

James pursed his lips and then licked them, enjoying the slick sensation, the feeling of damp lips being caressed by the cool air, the freedom of moving however he wanted. He watched Steve’s hand, half hoping he would make another attempt at touching him.

“But I scared you, didn’t I?” Steve asked, his face doing that horrible thing again.

James made sure that his face betrayed nothing; only careful blankness was presented to the Captain.

“That first moment in DC, when you realised I had tranqued you... I saw something in your face before you passed out. You looked like I had betrayed you. If you looked like that, it meant you must have trusted me, otherwise there would have been nothing to betray, right? I hurt you.”

James said nothing for a very long time. That moment had hurt, but pain was something that happened to him, a part of his life, and he wasn’t angry about it at Steve. He’d understood Steve’s actions. He might not agree with them, but he was proficient in adapting to the decisions made by people with power over him.

He floundered for something to say to remove that defeated look from Steve’s face. A phrase from a movie floated up in his memory.

“I’ve had worse,” he said with perfect honesty because yes, for him things had been so much worse, the captivity Steve put him through seemed almost like a vacation in comparison.

Though it appeared James’s words didn’t help. Steve’s face crumpled, scrunching up unattractively and he was crying again, ugly sobs that sounded as if they were ripped from his chest by force.

“What I did was terrible,” Steve sobbed out through his tears.

Obviously comforting didn’t help, so maybe honest truth would work.

“It wasn’t so bad,” James said finally, reaching out his flesh hand and taking Steve’s limp one in his own.

Steve hiccuped and stopped crying, shocked by the confession or maybe the touch. James couldn’t tell. Steve didn’t move, just stared at the hand James was holding as if it belonged to a stranger.

“I held you captive for weeks. I restrained you, stripped you, and fucked you, and I did it over and over again. Until you stopped me,” Steve tore his gaze away from his hand and locked his red-rimmed eyes on James. “And you had to stop me, because I wouldn’t have stopped myself. I know that now. _I wouldn’t have, I couldn’t._ ”

Steve looked more terrified than any man with a gun to their head had ever looked. As if he’d looked into a mirror one day and seen a monster, and now couldn’t live with that fact. But James knew monsters, knew them intimately, and knew that a little black in one's heart was nothing in comparison. That touch of darkness was something he could understand, could _trust_. He realised that if Steve had been the saint-like man the media made him out to be, James would never have let him inside.

“Did you ever hear me say no to you?”

Steve snorted.

“Like you would if you could! Did Hydra give you a chances to express your lack of consent?”

James bared his teeth; it wasn’t a smile, more like an animal’s grin but it felt right.

“They had me for seventy years, and in all that time they had to use restraints, drugs they addicted me to, and fucking mind wipes because my obedience always cost somebody’s life.” He gripped Steve’s hand and pulled it roughly until it connected with his upraised knee. “You had me in wrists restrains, you regularly came within striking distance. Hell, after an orgasm you stayed sprawled over me for whole minutes, completely oblivious to your surroundings.” James mashed the limp hand against his knee until Steve caught and held on by himself. “I could have broken you the first night!”

Steve stared at him with wide, wet eyes, his palm warm against James’s knee.

“Why didn’t you?”

James winced, yeah, he’d dug himself into that hole. Of course Rogers would latch onto this little tidbit; the man was like a fucking ferret, all cute and snugly on the outside with a an unstoppable hunter on the inside. When you looked at the furry parts, you never noticed the teeth, until you _felt_ them.

James grabbed Roger’s hand again, and again the other man’s face contorted into a an expression of brief awe, as if James’s touching him was something marvelous. With a huff of exasperation, James transferred the hand in his grip to his metal arm. This time Steve didn’t need direction and closed his strong warm fingers over the wrist. Almost immediately the plates loosened, the faint honeycombed pattern becoming visible on the surface of the defensive plates.

“You think this happens with everybody?” James snarled, oddly panicked and unwilling to stare at anguish etched into Steve’s face. It didn’t suit him at all. “You think I disarm myself for just anybody?”

Steve closed his eyes and James felt tension coil in his belly. If all this fell apart, he didn’t know what he would do. Their attempts at talking about this continued to be stilted and awkward, even though they were making progress. But when they touched, everything was easy, their bodies understanding each other perfectly.

“After you left,” Steve spoke up suddenly, his eyes still closed, but his hand still firm and warm against James metal wrist, thumb tracing the faint pattern of the tiny plates under the touch. “I sat down and really thought about things. About what I made you do. About what I did. About how I was capable of doing them in the first place.” Steve opened his eyes and looked at James.

Really looked at him, maybe for the first time.

“There’s more darkness inside me than I ever realised,” Steve said with a serious, sure voice, meeting James’s eyes the whole time. “Like something got broken inside me and I never even noticed. How could I have never noticed, James?” Steve’s voice shook minutely before he got it back under control. “I would like you to be free, I would love to set you free, from Hydra, from your past, from your memories. From me.” Steve swallowed but didn’t turn his eyes away. “But I know now that I won't. I can’t let you go. Not because you need me, but because I need you.” Steve swallowed, his adam's apple moving slowly up and down. “My name is Steven Grant Rogers and I love you more than it’s probably healthy to.”

Steve reached his other hand for James knee and pulled. His movements had been slow and telegraphed before which James found unnecessary; he had never actually _stopped_ Steve from touching him.

“You don’t know me,” James pointed out, shifting his balance slightly to allow Steve easier access, shifting his centre of gravity to give Steve more leverage if he wanted it. It was easy to adjust his body to the other man, to _accommodate_ him.

“I know you don’t like anything put into your mouth, you like to feel the movement of your lips. You also like to lick them, keep them wet, probably to feel the cool air on them. I know you lead with your right foot when fighting, but with the left when you are relaxed. I know you like strong-smelling foods, fruits, spices. I know your left arm is actually very sensitive and you like it being touched, but only when the plates are shifted to this kind of pattern.”

Steve lowered his voice, becoming more sure of himself the longer he talked, the longer James allowed the contact between them. “I know you don’t always like sex,” his voice shook a little at that. “But you do it because you like when I make you come two or three times in a row. I think it’s because it makes you forcibly relax. You have a little wrinkle between your brows usually and when you are wrung out after consecutive orgasms, it disappears. I know you‘re always aware of your surroundings; you like being armed but you’re so confident in your abilities that you prefer smaller, easily-hidden guns than a huge cannon. You always have at least two knives on you. I know you like trying new things. I know you don’t understand civilians at all. You like pop music, but will listen to anything at least once, just to see if you’d like it. There’s a kind of brutal efficiency to you, that I find dangerous…and incredibly hot.”

Steve finished his speech by pulling James harder towards himself, encouraging him to roll gracefully from the squat to kneeling over the other man. James knees were spread out wide, accommodating Steve’s legs between them. His arms went to Steve’s shoulders instinctively, searching for support in this obscenely vulnerable position.

“The man you wanted is not coming back, you realise that?” James asked, his weight settling on Steve’s thighs, letting himself feel the power of the body beneath him.

“I know,” Steve confirmed, and it was finally the truth.

He put his hands on James’s legs and pulled him further onto his lap. Steve’s hands were very warm.

“I never wanted him the way I want you.”


	10. Chapter 10

James stared into the bright blue eyes of the man under him and still couldn’t grasp why he put so much into solving this, into trying to get Steve to understand him.

He shifted his weight, his thighs pressing against Steve’s sides, making sure to keep him still as he framed Steve’s neck with his hands. Instead of being afraid, going tense, Rogers only shifted his hand to James’s hips, obviously comfortable with the touch.

“I’m not like other people,” James said softly. “If you want my forgiveness you are welcome to it. So don’t apologize anymore because I don't want to hear it again. I understand. Violence is my first, and my second reaction. Every person I meet is a target, then a person, and if they pull a gun on me I will kill them and won't lose any sleep over it.” 

James lowered his eyes and looked at Steve’s lips. The reaction he provoked in the other man was gratifying: the hands on his hips tensed and Rogers licked his lips. James liked the predictability of Steve’s reactions, liked that his desire was so all-encompassing. James even liked that edge of obsession Steve was clumsily riding. James was honest enough with himself to know he wouldn’t trust simple proclamations of love. This however, this need, he could quantify, could provoke, could trust. “I don’t feel things like other people. I rarely feel anything at all besides anger. When I said I wasn’t bothered by what you did to me, I was being literal,” James raised his eyes to meet those wide blue ones, whose pupils already dilating in desire. Steve was so easy, the easiest target he’d ever had. “I really don’t care if you fight or fuck me right now.” 

Steve opened his mouth to protest but James squeezed his neck in warning, keeping him silent. It was his turn for talking.

 

“I don’t care about the pictures, I don’t care if you want to bring a camera to bed and watch me through the lens as we fuck; if you want to spread me open and push things inside me, if you want to wreck me, mark me. Your darkness doesn’t scare me.”

Steve looked in equal parts dismayed and turned on by James’s words, and that…that was good.

“I don’t often think of sex. My body is a tool, nothing else, and having you wring so much pleasure out of it is…,” James hesitated, looking for a word adequate enough to describe how it felt, to be drowned in pleasure by something that was also a tool at best, enemy at worst.

Steve was rubbing small circles on his hips, probably trying to offer comfort, and James was briefly jealous of how easily this kind of thing came to Steve. 

“I know,” Steve murmured, eyes blown and voice hoarse. “I really do.”

James licked his lips and nodded, seeing that Steve might understand. Their bodies were not them, they were something crafted, created, something foreign.

“What gets me off the most is how much you enjoy touching me. It feels good, watching you, feeling you so turned on by me.”

 

Steve closed his eyes and breathed deeply, slowly, obviously trying to control himself.

“I like your strength, that you are my equal when it comes to power and endurance, I like that you are as indestructible as me. I like your body, the way it moves. I might never feel the same way about you as you feel about me, I’m probably not capable of it...”

“James, you…” James squeezed warningly again, making Steve shut up.

“Again. I am being literal. I _cannot_ feel. Not how I should, I realize it,” James took a deep breath and said what he tried not to remember too closely. “I remember feeling things, feeling anger, awe and pleasure. I also remember a surgery where they literally cut out parts of my brain. I didn’t feel much after that, and I think I liked that better.”

Steve’s mouth was open but no words came out. His eyes had that wide, devastated look again.

“I might not say ‘I love you’ and mean the same thing you mean, but I will mean other things.”

Steve swallowed the first words that came to him, the tears that threatened again, and asked hoarsely.

“What would you mean?”

James shifted against Steve, pleased with the question. The man was finally catching up.

“That you can touch me however you like, that you can come close and I will _allow_ it, that I will _kill_ for you, and I wouldn’t do that for anybody but myself. Not any more.”

James shifted again, letting go of Steve’s neck and reaching behind his own back to palm both Glock 19s concealed there.

“I mean that if you need to hunt, I will be your prey or your partner, if you need to fight, I will fight you or fight at your side,” James pulled both guns from their holsters and let them hang loosely at his sides. Tilting back he felt how Steve had changed his hold on him, how his fingers spread over James’s back, offering support. Their bodies communicated so perfectly it took his breath away.

“It means, I will not let you leave either.”

James tilted back even more and felt how well Steve responded, how easily Steve rolled onto his knees following the movement until they ended up with James on his back, knees pressed to either side of Steve as he knelt between James’s legs.

James watched the way Steve’s muscles bunched when he shifted his weight to support himself on his arms which were braced on either side of James's head. His pecs were tense and flexing inches from his nose. It was hard not to stare. Steve was really well-built, every single muscle standing out in sharp relief and the clinging shirt was only making the man look even more indecent.

“What do you want?” Steve asked, staring at him with a hundred different emotions in his eyes.

James took a minute to think. Not only within the scope of what was happening just here and now, but in a wider perspective, a wider timeframe.

“Hunt HYDRA. They made me. I want payback.” There was a click-click-click sound, his arm closing up in reaction to his thoughts in preparation for a fight. “I want their blood, I want to see them terrified of what they created.” And he did want that, want blood and destruction, want _revenge_. Once that craving was woken in him there was an unending pit of it inside him.

James shifted under Steve, fitting his legs closer to his chest, feeling the heat of Steve’s body even through the layers of clothes between them.

“And maybe somebody to watch my back,” he offered quietly.

Steve smiled down at him, a slow, gentle smile, his lids lowering in a long blink, his unfairly long lashes casting shadows on those sharp cheekbones.

“Always. I will always watch your back, I swear I will.” Steve’s voice was hoarse, strangely happy.

The expression in his eyes was hard to take so James turned his eyes away and murmured softly, “I could watch your back too.”

“Yeah.” Steve took a slow, shuddering breath and let it out even more slowly. “I‘d like that.” 

The words seemed simple but there was a thousand things he didn’t understand, the way the ever-present subtle tension, the quiet misery in Rogers’ body was suddenly gone.

“I want to kiss you,” Steve said, staring at James’s lips.

He cringed a little and started to turn his head away.

“Trust me?” Steve asked, and James hesitated. The weight of the guns in his hands was reassuring, calming, and he stilled, giving Steve silent permission.

Steve huffed a half laugh as he lowered himself to his elbow, getting closer, and used his free hand to push the stray hair away from James’s face.

“You know you wrinkle your nose when you think I’m talking bullshit?”

James immediately blanked his face but it was too late, as Steve only gave another silent laugh, and then kissed him. 

It wasn’t anything like James expected. The first touch was just a gentle brush of dry lips. Steve simply rubbed his lips over his own, just sensitizing them, making them tingle. Curiously, James titled his head to make it easier. After a while, when Steve didn’t try to deepen the kiss, simply enjoying the contact, James decided to risk even more and respond, for the first time actively kissing Steve. They kissed for so long that his lips felt swollen and the muscles around his mouth almost ached. 

Steve was hard against him, his hips grinding slowly into his own and James very much enjoyed feeling that powerful body caught between his thighs, the smell of him, the weight and heat of him.

“You can fuck me if you want,” James blurted out, blindsided by his own words.

Steve stilled above him, the easy sensuality suddenly replaced by a predatory kind of focus that James could almost feel on his skin. Something in Steve shifted from that happy man into a seasoned hunter, all his considerable attention narrowed down to a knifepoint.

When the silence went on for too long, James nudged Steve in the ribs with his knee. He might have been a touch indelicate.

“Oof,” Steve complained but didn’t move, still staring at James.

“Today?” James grumbled, kicking Steve again, harder this time. “Fucking?”

Rogers free hand flew to Bucky’s knee and pressed it flat against his side, taking away his leverage, even as he lowered himself to rest most of his weight on James’s chest.

“Here?” Steve blurted out, his mind still obviously _somewhere else_. 

“Do I look like I care?” James gesticulated with his hands, still holding the Glocks. Steve’s eyes tracked the weapons, his expression still a little slack.

“There’s a perfectly good bed just a few feet away from us,” Rogers offered, obviously stalling.

James tightened his legs around Steve and shook the Glocks again, indicating that his range of movements was severely limited at the moment. He was strangely embarrassed by his own offer, and it made him contrary, just because he could be, just because Steve went along with it as naturally as James’s body conformed to Steve’s desires.

“Right.” Steve sounded determined. 

He sat up on his knees, impressive abdominal muscles making the move look as easy as breathing, put one hand under James’s knee and wriggled the other arm underneath him. James arched his back easily, almost instinctively, thrilling at the power he felt in that body, letting Steve get a good hold before Rogers hauled him up. It was amazing to see how easily Steve picked him up, all 220 pounds of him, with barely a huff. Guns still held firmly in each hand, James wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and tightened his legs around his torso Steve lurched to his feet.

“Is the hardware necessary?” Steve asked as he made the few steps needed to reach the bed and lowered James on it, surprisingly carefully.

“Yes,” James answered with feeling as he set the guns on either side of him, high enough that they shouldn’t bother Steve but close enough to be in easy reach. Knowing that he had weapons nearby soothed his nerves very effectively. “If you’re going to put your cock in me, then I definitely need my guns.”

The other man’s expression was so precious that James briefly regretted not having a camera at hand himself.

“So you can kill me if I do something wrong?” Steve asked half teasing-half serious, casting nervous glances at the guns carefully positioned on the bed.

James huffed. “So I can shoot you somewhere _non-lethal_.”

“Yeah, that’d make your point for you rather nicely I think,” Steve snorted.

“You’re stalling,” James noticed, his right hand inching back towards the closest Glock.

Steve’s eyes were very dark, but surprisingly clear.

“I’m just not sure if you know what you’re offering,” Steve said slowly, seriously.

“I do.” James tilted his head back, showing off his throat and Steve’s eyes immediately went to it.

Steve hesitated before crawling onto the bed, his muscles stretching his shirt obscenely, and settled himself between James’s spread knees.

“I want to fuck you,” Steve said, his voice dropping rapidly. He put his hand on James’s belly, fingers outstretched. “You have no idea how badly I want to get inside you.” His voice was like gravel, dark and dry, and it rolled over James, raising goosebumps in its wake. “I want you to feel it, really feel it. I’d make you come first, maybe even twice, before I put my cock in you. I wouldn’t want anything to distract you after all, not even your own hard cock.”

James stared, his throat oddly dry. “Jesus,” he rasped, “You do have a way with words.”

Steve rubbed small circres on James's belly with his hand., the other arm resting on James’s knee.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about this,” Steve admitted, his fingers sneaking under James’s shirt, fingertips burning against skin.

“That’s kind of occurring to me now, believe me,” James grumbled but the truth was his cock was already reacting, already plumping inside his pants. It was ridiculous how _cooperative_ his body was with this man.

Steve leaned over him, dragging his nose over the exposed length of James’s neck before pressing his lips to the place where his jawbone curved, and slowly, methodically biting his way up to James chin. In a strangely animalistic move, Steve next simply rubbed his cheek all over Jame’s face, not bothered by the faint rasp of two-day’s worth of beard on James’s cheeks.

James raised his arms to touch that incredible chest, letting himself feel the way the thin cotton stretched over perfect taut muscles, and how the they worked when Steve moved over him.

“Will you let me do this? Will you let me jerk you off, maybe suck you off too, right through one orgasm into a second?” Steve’s voice kept dropping, kept becoming darker with every utterance. And still his touch was fairly innocent, simply rubbing himself over James with slow rolling, fully-controlled movements. “Will you let me open you up, spread you just for me, just for my cock? Knowing you wouldn’t come? That there would be absolutely nothing to focus on but me inside you? Me fucking you, me coming inside you?” Steve raised himself to lock eyes with James again. “Will you let me take pictures of you like that? Soft and open and spread helplessly on my cock, unable to do anything but _feel_?”

James swallowed, twice, his own voice more akin to gravel than its usual tone as he answered. “Yeah.” There was just a bit of stutter before he cleared his throat and continued, his hands sliding lower to Steve’s hips, small for such a huge man. “Yeah, I will.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the sex is going to take a few chapters. My god but Steve is filthy:)

Steve didn’t waste time before starting to divest James of his clothes. He dragged his hands down the Soldier’s legs until his hands snagged on his boots. Steve leaned one knee on the bed for leverage, long fingers making short work of the laces on James’s boots and pulling them off hurriedly.

“Careful,” James warned as he saw Steve getting ready to throw the boots away carelessly.

Steve froze, first looking at James and then, when he saw nothing out of place, he followed James’s gaze to the boots he was holding.

“You have your boots booby-trapped?” Steve sounded oddly long-suffering.

James answered by raising both his eyebrows.

“Right.”

Steve straightened up and carefully set the boots down by the door to the bedroom, as far away from the bed as he could.

Turning back, he took in the sight of James, sprawled on the bed with the guns resting beside him. Steve grabbed the edge of his clingy shirt and pulled it off without even breaking his stride. James had seen the man in various states of undress a lot during the last year, but it had never been quite this deliberate, this obvious. James didn’t realise how wary Steve had been of him, how guarded, until Steve _wasn’t_.

Steve looked amazing, tight muscles, abs so perfect they look photoshopped and pure power in every inch of him. His skin retained a faint golden tone that added even more softness, more allure to an already fairly stunning package.

James expected Steve to get on the bed with him, to crawl over him the way James wanted him to, but Steve stopped at the edge of the bed, pulled James’s socks off and then took each foot into his hand and pressed the ball of his thumb to the naked arch on a long, hard stroke that pulled a yelp out of James, the sensation first painful, then morphing into unexpected pleasure.

James kicked half-heartedly at the other man and Steve laughed, his eyes crinkling in pleasure as he fell down gracelessly onto James, blanketing him with his body and stretching up for a kiss. It was still odd not to twist away from it, to trust the man to know where the line for James was.

Steve was enthusiastic but also careful, he kissed James a lot, sometimes sloppily but never once did he try to push his tongue inside. James put his hands, both of them, on all the golden, naked flesh in reach. He felt the strength of the biceps flexing under his hands, the powerful line of his back, the way he divested James of his clothes, the way Steve _manhandled_ him.

James let Steve settle between his legs, and wrapped his thighs around Steve’s hips, enjoying the feel of the man’s body between his legs, the way he could feel every shift, every flex. It felt so different to actually touch Steve, to splay his hands wide over that powerful back and feel the muscles shift under the skin as Steve moved over him.

It didn’t take long for Steve to abandon James’s mouth, as nice as the careful kissing felt it didn't do much for James. On some level, Steve must have understood James only participated in the kissing because ultimately, it was something that got Steve hot.

He could smell the fresh sweat on Steve as the man lowered his head to James’s neck, first just running his lips over the skin there, breathing hot and moist on flesh usually covered by the layers of clothes James wore habitually to disguise his physique. People reacted better to a man they perceived as a big but also a bit overweight. Baggy clothes and messy hair and he was beyond notice. They forgot him; their eyes slid off him as if he was invisible. 

He bet nobody forgot Steve.

Just as James relaxed into the contact, Steve pressed his teeth to James’s neck. Blunt and warm, they simply rested on both sides of his tendon, warning of what was to come before Steve bit down. It was hard and slow, the pressure mounting steadily, until James had to grab Steve’s hair and pull his head away. 

He didn't go easily.

James yanked the hair harder, and had to use his biceps to get Steve to let go of his neck. The man’s pupils were blown wide and lips were red and wet. 

He looked like sex, he smelled like sex, and James felt his body give in to it. His cock was filling out inside his jeans and his breathing was speeding up. Nothing Steve had done so far would not normally be sexually stimulating to James, yet here he was, more than half-ready for sex. It occurred to him that it wasn’t the stimulation that turned him on, it was the way Steve very obviously got off on touching him. The way why he’d offered to let Steve take pictures of him during sex. Mostly it didn’t matter to him, James’s sense of self wasn’t overly connected to his physical body anyway, but the way it stole Steve’s breath away just to hear the offer was more than a little exciting.

He pushed Steve away a little and sat up, pulling off his own shirt under Steve’s hungry gaze. The man watched him as if James was the most desirable thing that he’d ever seen.

As before, the moment the shirt was off, Steve was at James’s nipples. He covered them with the flat of his tongue before trying to fit as much of the pectoral muscle into his mouth as possible, just fucking going to town on James’s chest. He bit and sucked at the skin until he raised red marks. He wasn’t shy about rubbing his tongue and saliva all over the muscle, even as he kneaded the other pec with the hand he wasn’t using to keep himself propped up.  
Steve obviously had a fixation, his breath coming in fast pants that resembled purrs as he caught the already abused nipple between his teeth and pulled, stretching the skin to the edge of pain and causing streaks of heat to travel down James's belly. 

He was now fully hard in his jeans and it was starting to get uncomfortable.

James shifted, pressing his hips up into Steve’s belly, rubbing his erection against the big body over him.

Steve didn’t take his lips or teeth off the James’s nipple, gleefully mauling whatever he could get his mouth around, but with a last, farewell rub to the right one, Steve flattened his palm and slid it down James’s chest until it snagged on the waistband of the jeans between them. Steve’s running shorts weren’t much of a barrier, barely did anything to hide that huge erection; James’s jeans, however, were much more of a problem. 

James curled his metal fingers over Steve’s hip, using the grip to push him up, and slid his flesh hand between their bellies trying to help the man open his jeans. The back of his hand kept bumping up against the hard bulge in Steve’s shorts and distracted James from his task. He twisted his hand around to cup his fingers over the warm flesh beneath the thin material. It felt heavy in his palm, filling it completely. Underneath the cloth he could feel how rigid Steve was already. He could also feel some dampness coming through the heat. The awkward angle made things more difficult, but he did his best to give Steve’s trapped cock a squeeze.

Throughout it all Steve not once took his teeth off James’s left nipple, which felt puffy and painful now, oversensitive. Steve exhaled some kind of muffled profanity against the flesh he had in his mouth and finally let go. The cool air against the wet, scraped skin felt almost unbearable, and James did some of shocked exhaling of his own.

“Fuck it,” Steve muttered scrambling suddenly off the bed.

Before James had the time to ask what had happened, Steve was bending over him and jerking his jeans open roughly.

“Better hold on to something,” Steve warned a split second before he grabbed the legs of James’s jeans and pulled.

James managed to grip the headboard with both hands before he felt himself sliding, and his body arched helplessly as Steve pulled his jeans off with a single harsh yank. The friction was so rough it pulled James’s underwear almost off with them; he ended up with his boxers hanging from his right ankle, so he kicked them off.

Steve stopped moving just to stare at James with dark, hungry eyes. Without taking his eyes off of James, Steve pushed his running shorts and underwear down his legs. His cock was as large as James remembered it, already red and rigid.

“Spread you legs,” Steve said in a breathy, rough voice that did _things_ to James belly, made it tighten and flip oddly.

The thing was, James had a very special relationship these days with anything he perceived as an order, mainly the instant and irresistible urge to kill the person issuing it. He stared into Steve’s dark eyes, pupils so blown they swallowed all the blue, listened to the heavy way the other man breathed, the intense focus directed solely at James.

James spread his legs.

Steve licked his lips, fell to his knees on the edge of the bed, and crawled between James legs, using his bulk to force James’s legs obscenely wide, palms of his hands sliding up each leg slowly, ruffling the hairs there, and making sudden goosebumps break out all over James’s body.

Steve didn’t dither. He rested both his hands on James’s naked hips, fingers stroking the oddly vulnerable skin.

“You can fuck my throat of you want to,” Steve said almost absently before curling his lips over his teeth and sinking his mouth over James’s cock, all the way down, until the head hit the back of his throat, and even further down.

James clenched both his hands around the headboard he was still holding on to, and heard the metal frame groan under his left hand. He eased up, freeing his flesh hand and grabbed gracelessly as Steve’s head, the sight of Steve’s nose buried in his pubic hair, almost flattened against James’s pelvis seared into his eyes.

Steve went in all out, sucking in a way that guaranteed to bring James off as fast as possible. Throughout it all, James could feel Steve’s cock, heavy and wet, rubbing against his calf. Steve grabbed the hand that was uselessly pawing at his hair and twisted their fingers together, gripping hard.

One, two, three constrictions of Steve’s throat and James was coming, his body spasming half in shock, half in pleasure and his cock spurting come into Steve’s mouth. Steve never once backed off, just seemed to force himself even more onto James’s cock, throat working frantically. His face was red and sweaty, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, and James wasn't all that sure Steve had even breathed in the last few minutes.

Steve pulled off James’s cock with a gasp, gulping breaths in quick, greedy gasps, and not letting go of the hand he had in his grip, before diving down again and getting the slowly softening cock back into his mouth with a kind of greedy desperation that James would really like to address. But the only thing he was capable of doing at this moment was grabbing hold of the headboard again with a curse, as Steve started sucking his cock again as if James hadn’t come just moments before.

He cursed and thrashed, but Steve only splayed his weight over James’s legs, holding him in place as he fit all of the rapidly softening cock in his mouth and sucked again, hard.

James whined, arching almost completely off the bed, but Steve kept hold of him, one hand on his hip, pinning him down to the bed, the other tangled with his own. James’s body jerked, more in confusion than in anything else. The sensations were both pleasurable and painful, confusing his body and mind. Pain he could ignore, pleasure was still foreign enough to him that ignoring it was hit-or-miss, but this odd mix of pain and pleasure was breaking through his control like a battering ram.

Finally releasing his flesh, Steve pulled up, letting his half-hard cock plop wetly onto James’s belly. James gasped at the sensation of cool air on his tingling flesh. Steve crawled over him, leaving a line of stinging bites over James’s belly, his nipples, all over his pecs, making the muscle flinch erratically. He carried on, over James’s neck, in exactly the same place he’d bit before, renewing the still-stinging mark there before licking at James jaw, towards his lips and kissing him. Steve smelled like come and heat, the scent of sweat and sex harsh in the air between them. 

James freed his flesh hand from the headboard, fingers stiff, and wrapped it around the back of Steve’s head, feeling obscenely vulnerable small vertebrae under his hand, the blood vessels under his skin were beating a frantic pulse against his fingers. Steve didn’t tense, just arched into the touch without taking his mouth off of James.

James wrapped his leg around the other man’s hip, shuddering slightly at the feel of Steve’s hard cock rubbing over his belly and his own half-hard cock. He twisted, rolling them over. Steve never stopped kissing him, even when he was flipped onto his back, his hand flying to James’s thighs and merely holding on.

They ended up in reversed position with Steve on his back, James stretched over him and straddling his hips. His hair fell down over them, locking them in a small and intimate space. James used the metal arm to brace himself on the bed, the machine an excellent tool for this, never tiring, never failing, and raised himself enough to break the kiss, and stare at Steve sprawled so trustingly under him.

It was sheer stupidity, really, to allow himself to be this exposed, this vulnerable with somebody else. James had no idea how people did this _regularly_. He had no idea how Steve could even stand it.

“I could do anything to you now,” James said, placing his flesh hand over Steve’s belly. And he could; he could kill him in a dozen different ways, no weapon needed, not even the enhanced strength. This was why the Widows were trained to be seductive, there wasn’t anything easier than killing a man during sex.

Steve shuddered, his eyes still locked on James’s as he undulated under James and making the head of his cock bump against James’s hand on his belly. James followed the unspoken request and moved his hand lower, fingers skating curiously over the hard desperate flesh. Steve groaned, half in pleasure and half in complaint at the hesitant touch. His expression was way too close to pain for James’s taste, so he shifted his hand to wrap around him. Steve’s cock felt hot, incredibly hard in his hand, alive. The skin was soft and smooth, under it James could feel how unyielding the hardness was, how desperate Steve must be, yet he still wasn’t looking for his own release. 

Was still only looking at James as if he was the most wonderful thing in the world, easy and relaxed under hands that could rip him apart.

“I know,” Steve rasped, pumping his hips up slightly under the steady pull of James’s hand. His face was flushed, eyelashes still damp from the involuntary tears he’d spilled before, and his voice wrecked from forcing James’s cock so deep in his throat; he’d effectively choked himself.

There was a world of meaning in those two little words, as if the man really knew what it meant for James to have him like this, so turned on, his body was just one exposed nerve, yet so damn sure of his safety at the same time. It boggled James’s mind. James could do this because ultimately he didn’t care what happened to this body. Steve cared, but placed his body in James’s hands anyway.

“You can do whatever you like,” Steve offered, his hands sliding up over James arms to reach his face and push the hair off his face. His fingers threaded into it deeper, harder, to keep the hair away, exposing James’s face completely. “I won’t ever tell you ‘no’.”

The thing was, James didn’t quite know what to do with Steve once he had him. Still, it didn't change the fact that this level of trust was ridiculous.

“You are an _idiot_ ,” James said as he realised the full breadth of that, feeling stunned and maybe a little out of his depth. Seriously, how was he even going to deal with this?

Steve had the balls to laugh at him, eyes crinkling in honest mirth, strangely pleased with being called an idiot.

He used the grip he had on James’s hair to pull him into a short kiss and then started to squirm. James sat back on his knees, settling all of his weight on Steve’s thighs, confident the man could take it and watched.

Steve stretched his upper body to reach under one of the pillows, his brow furrowing in concentration as he rooted for something. He made a small, triumphant sound as he emerged with a small plastic tube in his hand.

Steve looked at the tube, at James and then licked his lips.

“I want to put my fingers inside you now,” Steve said, his voice still shot all to hell.

James tilted his head sideways, letting his hair cover his eyes.

“I thought you wanted to fuck me?’ James teased a little, wrapping his hand around Steve’s cock again and giving it a firm pull. 

Steve gasped a little, but quickly shook himself out of the pleasure brought stupor. He locked his darkened eyes on James again.

“I want to put my fingers in you first,” Steve said calmly, with the kind of dedication people usually reserved for battle. “I wanna see how many you can take, how far. I wanna see if I can make you come like that, with my fingers. I want to see you _letting_ me.”

James licked his lips, watching how just talking about it turned Steve on, how his cock twitched in James’s hand and how his pupils became even more blown. Steve was really getting off on this, and that in turn got James off. He could feel how his mouth became suddenly dry and how his heart skipped a beat, foundering in his chest for a moment. He sat up straighter, feeling the tight clench of his knees over Steve’s hips relax into a wider, more accessible stance, and let his arms hang loosely on his side, all but spelling the invitation out to Steve. James uncharacteristically exposed himself to his touch as well as his eyes, already too far down this road to even think of stopping.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there will be 14 chapters total. Chapter 13 is a continuation of the endless sex scene and mostly written already, chapter 14 will be a short coda to round up the story. There will be no more extensions because this already was supposed to be short, maybe three chaptered story...

James watched as Steve slicked the fingers of his right hand with lube before reaching up for him. Steve used his dry left hand to cup James’s confused half-hard cock and balls, tugging both out of the way of the other, wet hand.

James exhaled gently as he felt the first cool slick touch against the hot skin of his perineum. Steve didn’t hesitate, didn’t take his eyes away from James’s face as he rubbed his lubed fingers over James’s hole.

Steve flushed a bit more, which James was almost sure couldn’t happen, and licked his lips. James mirrored the move, his lips also suddenly dry, and felt his cock twitch feebly in Steve’s hold. It was useless, he’d come just minutes before, the pure intent in Steve’s eyes was making him wish his body obeyed this command too.

James raised himself further on his thighs, the muscles flexing with the effort of keeping him elevated. Steve placed his free hand on James’s knee, sliding the wide palm upwards, feeling the muscle flex and tense under his hand. James might have shown off a little, tilting his body back a few degrees. The only thing keeping him upright was the power of his muscles, his belly and legs tightening up, standing out against taut skin.

Steve’s inhaled loudly, his eyes roaming over the long, naked stretch of James’s body as his hand slid up higher, fingers gently skimming over James’s oversensitive cock, making him shudder, and then up to flatten against James’s tensed abs.

“Jesus, you’re hot,” Steve said reverently, hand still spanning the width of James’s hard stomach. At the same time, he stiffened his fingers and pushed two of them inside the man.

The stretch was negligible,. If there was pain, James didn't notice it, his pain threshold so high that small discomforts often didn’t even register at all. He stared at Steve staring at him, feeling the fingers, slick and cold and shockingly intimate, push into his hole.

It didn’t hurt, it didn’t necessarily feel different than the times before when Steve had shoved his fingers inside him and made him come, at least physically. The fact that he was sitting up like this, deliberately on display, felt a lot different though.

This time James couldn’t remove himself from the situation like before, where only Steve’s dogged determination had dragged him back into himself and had made him come. This time James was very definitely present, almost too aware of the fingers slowly thrusting into him, stretching him, invading in a way he couldn’t ignore.

Steve changed the angle suddenly, pushing his fingers up and crooking them, pressing strongly against James’s prostate. The sudden flash of pleasure, sensation zinging through his body caused him to curl forward, one hand flying to brace himself against the bed. Steve didn’t let up though, jerking his hand in small sharp moves, each one landing on target, flooding him with more sensation even before he’d managed to recover from the previous one. James dropped his head, metal fingers curling against the bedclothes, flesh hand landing on Steve’s chest just to hold on to something as the other man pushed his limits of stimulation. James gasped, dropping his head even lower, hair hanging down, brushing Steve’s chest. He was panting, gasping, barely stopping himself from shouting at every vicious, merciless push inside him. His body was hot, heart pounding, chest heaving as if he couldn’t get enough air inside him. His cock was still only half hard, he’d come just minutes ago, but it was already leaking precome.  
James’s body was on fire, limbs trembling, and all he could do was pant and try to hold on as Steve played his body like an instrument. 

Steve slid his free hand into James’s hair, pushing it away from his face and using the grip to keep James’s head up, to fucking look at him even as he was breaking him.

The pleasure was slamming into James over and over, stealing the oxygen from his lungs, making him gasp loudly. He could feel his face and chest flushing, eyesight blurring as his body tried to do what it shouldn’t be able to. Steve pulled out his fingers suddenly, making James shudder.

Blearily, he re-focused his eyes and watched Steve fumble one-handed for the lube, spill some on James’s stomach and then drag his fingers through the spill and reached back between James legs.

James whined softly as he felt Steve give his balls a careful squeeze before there were fingers at his hole again, three this time, pushing in. The stretch wasn’t painful, but it was inescapable, almost too much to bear. The fingers made a squelching sound as they pushed in. Steve pulled them out almost immediately, and pushed them in slowly again, once again aiming for James’s prostate.

James slumped down, the only things keeping him from toppling down his metal arm and Steve’s hand still locked in his hair. Steve continued to pull his head up to stare at James’s face with his wide, dark eyes, lips open and wet, looking almost hypnotised. 

It didn’t seem possible but even though his cock didn’t get completely hard, James did come. The fierce, never-ending tension broke suddenly, and he almost sobbed with relief as his body spasmed once, twice, his cock spilling come sluggishly as Steve kept fucking him with his fingers, abusing his prostate the whole time. James was barely aware of making any sounds, of whimpering, and gasping like a dying man. Nor was he aware of Steve muttering praise and curses in the same breath, too arrested with what his body was experiencing.

Afterward, even his metal arm wasn’t enough to keep him up and James slumped onto Steve’s chest, draping himself like a blanket over the other man.

Steve shifted, pulling his fingers out of James’s hole and taking his hand from between his legs, helping him arrange himself comfortably on top him. He used his clean hand to stroke James head, run his fingers gently through the long hair, and pet James’s back in sweeping strokes. James pressed his face to Steve’s neck, panting and trying to convince his body it wasn’t going into cardiac arrest. The gentle, soothing touch was almost too much for his oversensitive body, yet at the same time, James couldn’t imagine it gone.

They spent long moments like that, Steve’s cock trapped between their bodies, hard and unbelievably hot. They were sweaty and sticky, lube and come smeaned everywhere. James was drifting in a haze of exhausted pleasure, but he couldn’t quite relax. The fact that Steve was still so hard, that he’d barely received any attention during the proceedings ate at him, his words coming back repeatedly. Steve would want to fuck him now he suspected, and it both terrified and excited him. James’s body was loose, tension forced out of him by two nearly consecutive orgasms, his ass ached already from the way Steve had finger-fucked him mercilessly for so long. James couldn’t focus, much less decide how he felt about the fact that soon, Steve would spread his legs again and push his large cock inside him. The large fingers had been a challenge, the cock would probably kill him he thought with dark amusement.

James gave a low whimper as he felt Steve move again, heard the click of the lube being opened, then felt the cool viscous liquid being poured over his over-stretched and sore hole.

Steve shushed him and pushed his fingers back inside again. There was so much lube, James thighs were wet with it, and the fingers pushing in made a loud, _obscene_ squelching sound. 

James curled his flesh hand around Steve’s shoulder and pressed his cheek against Steve’s neck, feeling the way the tendons shifted as he moved, but didn't protest, just breathed.

Steve was careful, not really fucking with the fingers inside him, just keeping him stretched and full.

“God James, you are so hot, you can’t imagine what it does to me. So hot. Jesus…,” Steve trailed off as if his mind was stuck at the image. “I want to spread you out on the bed,” Steve rasped. “Now that you are so pliant and exhausted.”

The fingers inside him gave a slow thrust, skirting over James prostate, sending a painful zing of sensation through his body.

“You are so soft now, so soft everywhere,” Steve kept murmuring moving his fingers inside James slowly. “I could arrange you however I wanted, put you on your back, just spread your legs wide, and maybe look a little at your hole. “The finger moved a bit faster now, with more intent, rubbing inside James impatiently.

“It feels very soft, stretched already. I wonder how pretty it would look, loose, stretched and so fucking ready for my cock.” Steve was talking in a strangely gravely voice, as if his throat was parched but he couldn’t stop talking.

“I can picture it, loose, maybe even gaping a little, definitely pink and swollen.” He pulled his fingers out to trace the rim, rubbing over the silky, slightly swollen edge of it, just circling as he spoke.

“Maybe I could just spread your cheeks and put my tongue in there too,” Steve mused almost absently, his fingers imitating soft licks of a tongue. “Make you squirm and beg, just lick and lick until all you could feel, all you could think about was your ass, how sensitive it was.”

Steve’s cock was leaking a steady streem of precome between them and his body was one long line of tension and frustrated desire. James could feel it jerk against his belly every time he breathed. Still Steve was talking, but not actually doing anything but finger him.

“Maybe I could take pictures of you like that, spread open and so fucking ready.” Steve licked his lips and swallowed loudly. “Then I would put my cock inside you, nice and slow. Slow enough that you don’t do anything but just _feel me_. There wouldn’t be a hard cock to distract you, I’d make sure of that. You could only lie there and let me, take me in as if you were fucking born to do it. Just like that, with your legs spread wide, cock soft against your belly and your hole stretched wide and helpless around me. There would be absolutely nothing to distract you, you could only _look at me, think about me_.”  
James turned his head to bite at the juncture of Steve’s neck, tasting sweat and skin on his tongue.

“Stop talking and just _do_ it,” James rasped, his own throat suspiciously dry, all too aware of his ass now that Steve spent so much time talking about it.

Steve moved his clean hand to the back of James’s head, pulled out his fingers from James’s body and then rolled them over. 

James let him, following his body’s cues easily. During a fight Steve didn’t telegraph much, but now his body was easy to read.

He ended up on his back with Steve over him on all fours. The other man sat down on his heels and reached for James’s knees, pushing them slowly open, never once taking his eyes away from James, clearly delighting in the fact that James was letting him.

Once Steve had James’s knees spread as obscenely wide as was comfortably possible, he slid his his palms up over his thighs to James’s goin. 

James flinched a little at the feel of the other man’s thumbs pressing firmly into the stretched tendons. He exhaled slowly when Steve ghosted his hands over his definitely oversensitive cock to his balls, giving them a friendly little squeeze before spreading both wide palms over James’s hips and lifting him a little, tilting them up and and towards himself.

James felt an odd shiver in his chest, a curious warmth on his cheeks as he realised that Steve really was arranging him so that he could stare at his hole. Steve’s eyes became even darker if that were possible, and he licked his lips again, his eyes riveted to that place he had stretched for so long. James wasn’t one for sexual encounters, his body and mind usually too busy to register desire, much less spend time thinking about it. Once he was in the situation, once he was hard, he was wanted gratification as soon as possible. Steve had been hard for ages already, but he kept ignoring his cock, going so far as to interrupt whatever caresses James thought to reciprocate on him. 

“Don’t,” James said, not really sure what to say. _Don’t look at me that way? Don’t deny yourself something you want so much?_ “Just do it already,” James said finally, discarding all the other things he wanted to voice. This wasn’t the place or time for it. Maybe there never would be. After all, Steve didn’t ask about the guns lying just inches from them, didn’t mention all the hardware that Steve had to take off James’s body just to strip him.

Steve bit his bottom lip carefully, leaving white marks as he shifted James again so that his ass rested on Steve’s thighs. He reached for the already half-empty lube bottle and squeezed out a generous amount, quickly slathering himself with it. His jaw tensed as if in pain when his palm closed over the dark red, incredibly hard cock that remained had basically been untouched all this time. 

James reached back to grab the headboard again, needing to have something to hold on to when Steve pushed himself inside him for the first time, and also because it made all the muscles of his chest and abdomen stand out exquisitely. 

His instinct was right and Steve immediately focused on James’s chest.

“Fuck,” Steve swore softly and gripped himself harder, face going scrunched and tight before leaning over James, bracing on his free arm.

James felt the press of hard, hot flesh against his ass, felt how it was soft and very hard at the same time. Steve didn’t push in, just kept pressing the head of his cock against James and then backing up. 

It was a strange sensation, feeling the pressure and then feeling it abate without any kind of resolution. Steve’s eyes were fixed on his cock and his jaw was clenched tight; he looked as if he was in pain. James couldn’t understand why Steve was dragging this out so long. What could he possibly be getting out of it?

“You are so hot, so fucking hot,” Steve was muttering under his breath.

“Come on Steve, do it,” James said, his voice low and raspy. “Do it.”

Against all instinct to lock his thighs over Steve and make him move, James spread his legs even more, feeling the burn in his groin, opening himself to the man in ways he never had to anybody, not willingly, and undulated his body as invitingly as he could.

Steve broke down finally and curled over James, pushing in at last.

It hurt, nowhere near the level that would make James consider stopping, but the discomfort was there and very present. His body stretched, the rim burning against the slow drag of skin. The overabundance of lube made the entry both easier and louder. Steve’s cock moved slickly inside as it forced first the rim to give in to him, then the second, internal set of muscles. It wasn’t the negligible pain that made James clench his own jaw and arch under Steve, it was the inescapability of it, a kind of intimacy he didn’t think was possible.

Steve’s cock was big, definitely bigger than average, but now that it was forcing its way into James’s ass torturous inch by torturous inch, it felt huge. 

James panted, not really knowing why, and Steve cursed as he bottomed out, so deep his balls were resting snugly against James’s ass.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve muttered with strange awe in his voice, “Jesus christ… Can you feel me inside?”

James growled breathlessly at Steve. As if there was anything he could feel _but_ Steve’s ridiculously large cock inside him.

Steve leaned back a bit, took hold of James’s hips and pulled out almost all the way. His grip was tight enough that it would leave bruises even on James’s augmented body, but James could barely feel it anyway, all his senses focused on the cock pulling out of him with a shockingly loud sucking sound before Steve thrust back in. 

It punched the breath right out of him. James was viscerally aware of the stretch of his muscles, the stiffness of the flesh pushing inside him, the heat of it, the _weight_ of it. It didn’t matter how open he felt before, how exposed. Now, with Steve’s cock so heavy and hot inside him, he felt truly naked, truly aware of his body. He thought that chasing his own orgasm would be easy, but due to Steve’s attentions before this, he had nothing else to focus on. James gripped the headboard harder and continued to pant through the stretch and invasion, the push-pull sensation of Steve slowly fucking him.

“God you are so good, so good for me.” Steve was also panting, babbling filth at him, forehead beaded with sweat. “So smooth and soft inside, so perfect, Jesus, so _perfect_ , taking me so well, just made for my cock, just so perfect.”

Steve changed his grip on James’s hips and shifted him easily, as if James was nothing more than a personal toy, and on the next push in, Steve’s cock dragged directly over James’s already much-abused prostate.

James shouted, muffling the sound by pressing his face into his arm, still stretched overhead. His body jerked uncontrollably, the zing of sensation every time Steve fucked in punching the breath right out of him. It felt as if Steve was pouring liquid heat on his nerve endings.

Against all odds, against what James thought was even possible, he got hard again, fully hard, his cock heavy and full on his belly.

Steve stopped moving, panting harshly, his face and chest deep red, his cock literally throbbing inside him, so hard James could feel his pulse.

Steve shifted one of his hands to James’s cock, wrapping the huge paw around it.

“This is not what we agreed on,” Steve rasped and fucking _pulled_ out.

James growled, clenching his jaw against the sensation of being empty so suddenly, of his ass trying vainly to clench on nothing.

“You might get,” Steve panted, eyes wide and wild, “distracted.”

James clenched his hands around the headboard for fear of using them to kill Steve.

“I hate you,” James growled on an exhale when Steve rearranged him again, pushing two fingers up inside him easily. “I fucking hate you,” James repeated as Steve immediately curled his fingers to press against James’s prostate. “So much.”

“And yet,” James heard through the blood rushing in his ears, “you let me do this anyway.”

Steve put his mouth on James’s cock in the next moment, sucking him in deep immediately and then just licking and sucking without any break, even as he massaged James’s prostate firmly and without a shred of mercy. 

The tension in James’s body was building up and up, no breaks, body arching nearly completely off the bed, heart pounding and muscles shivering as if he had just ran an impossible distance.

When James came, it nearly hurt more than felt good, pleasure spiking and spilling over, his cock jerking once inside Steve’s mouth and spurting a pitiful amount of come, even as Steve swallowed around him, his throat massaging James’s cock through the orgasm.

When he came down from it, he felt weak as a kitten, not even able to keep hold of the headboard. His arms flopped down uselessly, his heart beating madly in his chest. His skin was beaded with sweat and just starting to cool.

He was completely limp when Steve changed position again, took hold of his knees and installed himself between them again. When he pushed into James’s over-sensitive sore hole, James _sobbed_.

Steve went right to the fucking, no more teasing, just powerful thrusts of his hips that kept pushing James up the bed. Steve was fucking so hard, so deep, his balls slapped James’s ass with every push in. He curled himself over James, mouth catching on James’s jaw and his neck as he fucked with abandon. Steve wasn’t watching or talking anymore, his eyes were squeezed shut and he mouthed at any flesh he had in reach. His cock felt even bigger inside than before, almost too much. James was too sensitive, too sore. Every time Steve fucked in he vocalised, just shy of shouting, wetness spilling from his cheeks even though he didn’t know why. 

“Please,” James begged, unsure what he was actually begging for. “Please,” he scrabbled at the bedding, dimly aware of it tearing under his metal hand as Steve kept mercilessly _fucking_ him. James squirmed, not sure if he wanted to get away from Steve or maybe just make him come finally. He could think of nothing else but Steve’s body heaving with exertion above him, muscles bunching, skin slick with sweat. Steve’s cock pushed into him over and over, Steve’s breath and tongue rasping over his naked chest. James scrabbled weakly at Steve’s arms, his back, not even noticing he was leaving welts. Steve found his nipple and bit down, his teeth worrying at the still-sore bud, Steve’s hips pistoning into James as if it was James sole purpose in life to just _take_ it.

Suddenly Steve stilled, his cock getting harder inside James, even bigger, if it was at all possible, and then jerking once, twice, and spilling inside him. James reached up held Steve through his orgasm, through every shudder and jerk, every twitch and helpless moan for what felt like a small eternity. Steve came, and came, and came, his cock jerking inside James and spilling over and over. Steve pumped his hips a few more times, before stilling, slumped over James, and panted into his chest.

James moaned again, once, when Steve shifted and his softening cock slid out of him in a rush of come and lube.

After that they were still, the room was quiet and warm. James wasn’t asleep, exactly, but he drifted for what he cautiously assumed was an hour. He roused when he felt Steve shifting above him.

“You okay?” Steve asked, pressing his dry lips to James’s jaw.

James blinked, not sure of how to answer because the _nerve_ of this guy, honestly.

“Yeah,” he croaked out finally. “I think.”

James’s body was so relaxed, it felt as if he was drugged. The lassitude in his limbs, the slowness of his reaction time almost alarming. Dimly, distantly he knew his reaction times were shot to hell right now.

“You are beautiful,” Steve assured him. “You were so perfect for me, so good.”

Steve shifted, making James aware of how much…fluid there were on his skin. Between the lube, the dried sweat and come, James was positively filthy.

“Shower,” James croaked and Steve hummed his agreement.

It took some effort to peel themselves from the bed and stumble into the bathroom, James, was all-too aware of the ache in his ass. Steve’s hands remained somewhere on his body, touching, stroking, keeping in contact.

All James had energy for was to stand limply under the shower spray hoping the water would clean him off on its own.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the end of the journey.  
> PS if you thought Steve was done lovingly torturing James you were wrong :)   
> PS2: there was supposed to be a coda, but I decided against it. Once I started writing it, I decided it really didn't fit. I might write it as a separate story one day though.
> 
> ALso HUGE thanks to all the girls from chat named Bucky's Thighs: V, S, C, J, K and the irreplaceable and wonderful beta NurseDarry. the smut scene of Olympic size wouldn't be written without all their input.

Steve recovered faster, which was understandable since he’d only came once, and took it upon himself to rub shower gel over them both. James leaned against the shower wall and dozed a little more, locking his metal arm around the shower handle embedded in the wall to keep himself upright. 

The slow drag of Steve’s soapy hands was relaxing and he didn’t see the reason for doing any work himself when Steve was willing to do it all for him. Steve washed his arms, his chest, his back. Then he went to his knees, taking care to wash James’s legs, cupping his knees and taking time to clean the spill of his own come from the inside of James’s thighs.

He gently lathered James’s cock and balls, then slid his fingers carefully between James’s cheeks and over his sore hole. James woke up a little, realising Steve was definitely spending more time there than anywhere else on his body. So it didn't surprise him when Steve cupped both his cheeks, spread them open and put his mouth on James’s hole. He licked with the flat of his tongue for a long time, taking his time with the whole over-sensitive area until James was grateful for the shower handle, because without it he would be nothing more than a puddle on the floor.

Steve firmed his tongue and pushed inside, licking into James’s ass with the singular focus James was already familiar with.

James whined, not really sure what he was thinking, letting Steve do this. But the tongue felt good, slick and soft-firm, stabbing inside him without friction. It was almost relaxing, gentle, non-threatening and so very intimate. Seve was enjoying it, James could tell. The way he was humming, the way he kept shifting his grip on James cheeks to spread them open further, to push more of his tongue inside was proof enough of his enjoyment.

After a while James became aware of the fact that Steve was hard again, his cock bumping against James knee every so often.

He roused himself enough to nudge Steve away and up, all too aware of how abused his ass was. When Steve standing behind him, pressing his ridiculous chest all along his back, James reached behind himself and gripped Steve’s hip. He pulled the man close, so close Steve’s cock slid between his legs. When he felt the head of Steve’s cock nudge his balls, James closed his legs, trapping it between his his thighs where the skin was warm,, and wet, and slick from the water.

Steve shuddered behind him, one of his arms curling around James’s chest like a steel bar, the other settling on James’s hip.

“Can I?” Steve murmured right into James ear, his voice low and husky.

In response James tightened his legs around the firm cock, giving Steve as much of a tight space to fuck into as he could.

Steve shuddered, pulling him impossibly close and started fucking.

It was almost relaxing, just making sure Steve was feeling good, feeling him come slowly undone, feeling how smooth and silky the cock between his thighs was. The way the head nudged James’s balls was strangely nice too. Curious, James lowered his hand to his tightly-closed thighs, pressing it between his legs so that on every thrust in by Steve’s cock he could give the head a little rub. He loved the way the silky-hard head felt as it bumped into his waiting palm, the forming there. He had no idea how long it took before Steve shuddered behind him, groaned “Oh, Buck…” and spilled himself on James body again.

Steve stilled almost instantly, James could feel the panic radiating from him.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to say that! James, I know… I know who you are, it’s just that I’m so used to thinking of you as Bucky, it’s nothing more than habit, I swear!” Steve babbled, still pressed close.

James leaned his hot forehead against the cool tile and sighed, deciding to let it go, just this once.

He shifted closer to Steve, turning his head to brush his lips against Steve’s.

“It’s a bad habit, get rid of it,” he muttered into Steve’s mouth, oddly relieved to feel the frantic tension leave Steve’s body.way he could close his fingers over it for a brief moment before it pulled away from his grip.

Steve groaned, low and shocked, and bit down on the back of James neck, his hips spreading up frantically, hands gripping James hips harder, adding to a collection of bruises already

They cleaned themselves again, dried the most of the water off and stumbled to the bed. Steve pulled the the worst of the soiled sheets away and they both slid into the bed gratefully. James was too exhausted to protest the closeness, his eyes slipping shut almost the moment his head hit the pillow.

Steve was lying beside him, but not sleeping.

He kept shifting, touching James’s shoulder, his chest, sometimes his hip in short movements. It was as if the man kept reassuring himself that James was still there, still with him.

Despite his closed eyes, the constant, restless energy emanating from the man beside him was actually keeping James awake. Steve was in a heightened state of vigilance and James’s instincts kept telling him that something was wrong, that there was danger there.

When James had had enough of it, he turned to look at the Captain. The man was lying in his side, his eyes open and gleaming faintly in the darkness of the room, watching him.

James sighed and rolled so that his back was to Steve. He heard a hitch in Steve’s breathing, the great drama queen probably immediately coming up with some shit about James rejecting him.

“You can put it in if you want,” James offered.

Steve was silent behind him, his confusion a palpable thing.

“You want to make sure I’m not leaving right?” James asked, not bothering to look over his shoulder.

“Huh?” Steve made an inquisitive sound.

James sighed, “You didn't take any pictures,”James said. He could feel the way Steve stilled behind him.

Yeah, James was very much aware that Steve’s obsession was a real, tangible thing. But that was okay. He knew obsession, knew how it felt to have an imperative at the front of his mind at all times, impossible to ignore. If it came down to it, James trusted that obsession more than any declaration of love. He didn’t know love, couldn’t predict it.

This, he understood.

“You can put your cock inside me, if you want,” James clarified.

Steve was inching his way closer to James, until he was all but wrapped around him, large body hot and strong against his back.

“You must be sore,” Steve said, hesitantly. It was obvious that since James had put an idea in his mind, Steve was very keen on actually doing it.

James thought about the marathon of fuckin they did, of all the abuse his ass had gone through. No un-enhanced human could have stood it without severe discomfort, possibly injury. James was enhanced though, and while he was terribly sore, it wasn’t debilitating or even largely unpleasant. He thought about going to sleep like that, with Steve’s soft cock stuffed inside him as if James body was designed just for that, just for having Steve’s cock inside him. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought, not at all.

He also thought about other people who might find their way into Steve Rogers’ bed, and was sure none of them would be offering that to him. He would teach Steve all the ways his enhanced body was superior to anyone else and make sure he would be always the focus of Steve’s obsession.

“Do it,” James said in a low, clear voice, “I want you to.”

He could hear Steve licking his lips, before speaking in a slightly trembling voice.

“Yeah, okay. Just...”

It took a bit of time and effort. James really was sore and he groaned when Steve put a lubed finger inside him to slick him up again. Then he had to breathe very slowly when Steve took his soft cock between his fingers and pushed everything inside, cock and the fingers. James shuddered and maybe even whimpered a little when Steve removed his fingers, the stretch burning fiercely for a moment before his ass clenched on the soft length inside him. It felt…almost comfortable. The intrusion was soft, conforming to his body’s natural shape instead of forcing James to accommodate it, and it was warm.

Steve plastered himself all along his back, chest to back, thighs to thighs, and locked his arm around James chest. He literally couldn’t get any closer. James could hear his breath, forcibly slow and even, trying to deal with the sensation of being inside James again.

“Is this okay?” Steve whispered softly into James neck, rubbing his lips there gently.

“Yeah,” James voice was surprisingly raspy when he answered. “I’m staying this time.”

“Thank you,” Steve said, dropping small kisses on the back of James’s neck. “You won’t regret it, I swear.”

James looked at the dark wall in front of him, remembering the pictures and the careful progression of them, remembering the effort this man had already put into finding, seeing him.

“I know.”

It took time to fall asleep, or as close to true sleep as James ever got. The physical discomfort wasn’t an issue, the strange intrusion inside him not uncomfortable, just alien. He had long ago learned to ignore his body completely, so it wasn’t what kept him awake.

Eventually Steve’s breaths lengthened and evened out in sleep, his arms still locked around James, hips pressed close to his ass so that his cock stayed firmly inside James.

Slowly, unconsciously James matched his breathing pattern to Steve’s and fell into the resting state he called sleep.

***

Steve woke up when James was buckling on his waist holsters.

He looked rumpled and still-drowsy as he sat up on the bed, the sheets falling to his lap, and watched James. He said nothing as James clicked on the last of the custom-made holsters. When James reached for his red henley, Steve got up, both of James’s Glocks in his hands.

It made James swallow, seeing his favorite weapons in those hands. It felt strange, to see the man armed with fully loaded guns and only feel a shiver of excitement, not fear.

He got close, right into James’s personal space, crowding him.

James spread his legs, pushed his shoulders back and stood his ground, looking up at the stunningly blue eyes.

Steve’s expression was unreadable, but his body was relaxed.

And naked, holding James’s guns as if they were an extension of himself, his grip loose and confident.

Completely naked and the man seemed both unaware and unashamed of the fact. James swept his eyes over that stunningly perfect physique, his eyes catching on the soft cock hanging so defenselessly between the man’s legs, and swallowed before turning his eyes back to Steve’s blue gaze.

Steve kissed him, slow and sure, teasing at his lips until James responded, swaying forwards, toward the muscled, naked body. He circled Steve’s shoulders with his arms, locking him in place.

Steve didn’t try to escape his grip, on the contrary he pushed in even closer, hissing harder, biting at James’s jaw before returning to his lips.

He felt Steve embrace him in turn and felt the weight of the Glocks being pushed slowly into the holsters at the small of his back.

Steve broke the kiss, looked James in the eye, and slowly fixed the red henley to lie over the guns, concealing them.

“When can I see you again?” Steve asked, shifting his hands to James hips, thumbs stroking a tiny patch of flesh above the waistband of James’s jeans.

James pulled out of the embrace, testing it and was pleased to feel Steve releasing him. The man’s face started falling at James’s lack of response before he got ahold of his emotions and composed his face into something more neutral. It was such a contrast from the demanding man from the night before, and it made James dizzy.

Instead of answering verbally, James reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone he had found in the front room earlier.

Steve first furrowed his brows before his face cleared as recognition struck.

“You’re stealing my phone?” His voice was soft and light though, lacking any rancour.

James lifted his eyebrow.

Steve huffed out a silent laugh.

“I could get you your own, you know. This one is locked,” Steve said with a smile, meaning the StarkTech locks installed on all the Avengers’ gear.

With a smirk, James pressed his metal thumb to the dark screen of the phone. The tiny plates in his fingertips shivered slightly, rearranging minimally, and with a cheery ‘plink’ sound the phone unlocked.

Steve’s blue eyes followed the movements first with surprise then with a kind of wry amusement.

“Tony is going to hate you, and possibly pester you uncontrollably until he learns just how you did that.” Steve warned, but he was pleased all the same, completely ignoring the greater security implications of what James had just showed him.

Sadly, it only confirmed James’s earlier revelation that for all his intelligence, Steve Rogers was an _idiot_.

Steve didn’t try to touch him again when James collected the rest of his things, but neither did he bother to dress, simply standing there naked and defenseless, and so damn beautiful it made James chest ache.

“I’ll call you as soon as I get a replacement phone,” Steve promised, watching James zip up the overalls and pull on the baseball cap. Between the baggy overalls and the hat, he barely looked recognizable as James at all.

James turned to look at Steve for the last time, taking in the glorious length of his body and smiled, a small but honest smile. It felt odd on his face, alien.

“I will answer when you do,” James promised.

The last thing he saw before leaving the apartment was Steve’s brilliant smile, transforming his face into a different, younger man. He hadn’t known the Captain even had an expression like that.

It was a nice, sunny day outside, and James had a hankering for plums.


End file.
